The Offence
DIRECTOR Sydney Lumet made a lot of films in his time, but nothing was ever as clammy, claustrophobic and downright unsettling as The Offence.
Released in 1973 as a very personal vehicle for Sean Connery who was feeling severely boxed in by his James Bond screen persona, it's an offbeat and often disturbing study of male violence and the effect it exerts on those whose world revolves around it – on both sides of the law.
Connery, in one of his most impressive screen performances, plays an angry and edgy detective who snaps when he comes up against a supposed child rapist, played with typically layered malevolence by the great Ian Bannen.
Tormented by the things he's seen and done in his policing career Connery is a man running out of road on the way to a full blown collapse.
Lumet, who famously worked with the reluctant Bond before on five separate occasions including the similarly intense The Hill, unwinds this depressing tale of deeply damaged souls with the subtle touch of a master craftsman.
The aftermath of the child assault sequence near the start and some of the flashbacks we witness are so gruelling they're hard to stomach (I gave up re-watching the film twice while writing this review but finally made it to the end on a third screening), while the fact that the interrogation room where Connery and Bannen face off seems to shrink in size every time we see it which only adds to the unsettling air of nightmare about the whole thing.
It all adds up to a tense and often grim viewing experience, albeit one that's hugely involving. Bannen's alleged sex offender is a strange, sweaty and oddly inscrutable character and he makes the most of his brutal time on screen, as do the likes of Trevor Howard as a hard bitten superior officer – but it's Connery who is truly electric throughout.
Wired, wild and clearly as screwed up at home as he is at work it reminds you just how great a Thespian the much-loved Scot could have been if he'd shed the albatross of Bond a little earlier. Slightly balding, over weight and deeply unlikable as he is here there is simply no taking your eyes of him.
Using his star clout to seal a deal with United Artists that stipulated that if he returned to his lead role in the new Bond epic Diamonds Are Forever then the studio would back their star in two separate drama vehicles that would cost no more than $2 million apiece, The Offence was to be the actor's way out of the Hollywood straitjacket he'd found himself in.
Of course, that didn't happen. The film tanked at the box office and UA reneged on the deal which meant that film number two, a reinterpretation of Macbeth that Connery would both star in and direct, never got to see the light of day.
What's left is one of the finest pieces of work that both Lumet and Connery would ever put their names to. A gruelling but remarkable slice of cinema that's very hard to watch but equally difficult to walk away from.
