Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

Console best movie i've ever seen.

Cleveronix A different way of telling a story

VimalaNowlis One of the best "Nazi collaborator hunting" movies. It's not about catching a big name for news. It's about every collaborator and every murderer must pay. It's about seeking justice 50 years after the murder. It's about manifesting justice in this world as long as any collaborator is still alive. Instead of simple right and wrong, the script showed different aspects of the collaborator's personality and different faces of the Church. And it explained only with lots of highly placed and powerful confidential help can any war crime criminal get away and hide in plain sight for such a long time. Michael Caine has always been one of my favorite actors. And he turned in one of his best performance here. Even though you want him to get caught, but you can't help feel sorry for him.

robert-temple-1 Here we have Michael Caine doing a really amazing job as a character actor. Never was he so good. He plays the lead in this film, a harrowed, contemptible Vichy official who was responsible for the deaths of some Jews during the War, who now as an old man is fleeing the people who want to catch him. The film is superbly directed by Norman Jewison and scripted by Ronnie Harwood, based on a novel by Brian Moore. The film is a savage swipe at the Roman Catholic Church and its complicity in the extermination of the Jews I Europe. For decades, a network of fascist priests and abbots throughout France have been sheltering Caine in abbeys and other religious locations. Caine was a brutal husband to his Charlotte Rampling, who left him years before, but he takes refuge with her while he is on the run, and she is particularly brilliant in that supporting role, and their interactions are fascinating. Tilda Swinton is very good as a determined investigating magistrate who wants to find Caine at all costs, and doesn't mind getting up the noses of numerous clerics. This film is very gripping, and although it is no classic, it is an excellent suspense movie. Any film about Vichy collaborators tends to be of interest, and this is a superior one.

GeorgeSickler Wow! I don't recall reading such a wide spread of ratings/comments on any other movie.I've seen "The Statement" only on TV, beginning very recently. Michael Caine once again has done an outstanding job in his role as a French military or police collaborator in Nazi-occupied Vichi France during WWII. In modern times, as a sick, old man, he has suddenly become a target for capture or execution by a wide range of factions.I thought it was an interesting storyline and well acted by all concerned. It does step on a number of toes, particularly a segment of the Catholic Church in France and high-ranking members of the modern French government who have risen to power in spite of their previous roles in the Vichi government. That shouldn't be a reason to trash the movie if it's based on fact, and no one seems to suggest otherwise.So, this is somewhat of a friendly rebuttal to what others have written.So what if Michael Caine doesn't have a French accent? The movie got blasted for that, but I'm suggesting "who cares?" It's still a nice movie. I don't think Sean Connery's Scottish accent interfered with his being the Russian captain in "The Hunt for Red October." However, Harrison Ford's trying to fake a Russian accent in "K-19--The Widowmaker" did tend to interfere with the story line.Some have said this is just another rewrite of history to make it seem as if WWII was all about the Jews. And Caine's character "only" murdered 12 Jews, as if "what's the fuss all about?" Obviously, the movie is not just about the war being about Jews. I don't think the Japanese had Jews on their mind when they attacked Pearl Harbor to bring the U.S. into the war. Nor was Hitler focusing on Jews when he invaded Poland, France, the Soviet Union, other nations and firebombed the U.K.Nevertheless, Hitler did make an all-out effort to murder seven million Jews as his "Final Solution" to exterminate all of them, especially after they had been almost starved to death as slave labor to support his war effort. This is a fact that shouldn't be overlooked.If I understand this storyline correctly, Caine's character, Pierre, was a Frenchman who became a Nazi collaborator in Vichi France. He and other collaborators began to round-up Jews and murder them even before the Nazis told them to. The "handful" that he directly murdered was among almost 80,000 others who met the same fate in his district of France. That was recognized at the end of the movie, as well as the memorial at the wall of the town in France where Pierre murdered those Jews.After the war, he was captured for trial but escaped. While he was in hiding, he was given a full pardon by the president of France, supposedly through the influence of the Catholic church and friendly high members of the French government who also had a hidden Vichi past.But, now as an old and sick man, Pierre's problems began anew when the World Court enacted the "Crimes Against Humanity" laws. That made him a high-profile fugitive again for a number of reasons at many levels made clear in the film.That's the focus of the movie. The time is the present. Pierre was trying to avoid getting caught and turned to old friends in the church and the government for help. People get killed who get in the way. You won't find James Bond style constant action here, that others seem to think is lacking. But I think it provides an interesting perspective and is well worth watching.

sfviewer123 Pure rubbish, ridden through with stereotypical Anglo-Saxon anti-Catholic and anti-Continental bigotries and biases. Having said that, some nice scenery but that was about it. I can't believe Michael Caine made something this poor at this point in his career.And now adding more content to satisfy IMDb's requirements: Michael Caine plays an ex-Nazi French collaborator; he "acts" exceedingly nervous throughout the film helped no doubt by the liberal application of some oil-based lubricant to his face; Church officials are of course portrayed as deeply corrupt and dishonest, protecting their pro-fascist sympathies until the heat gets turned on them when naturally they sell out their own man, and so on. Again, the only reason to watch are some nice scenes of the French countryside, one could even let it run with the sound off as a kind of background living-room panoramic.