Norman Jewison's film version of a little-known Brian Moore novel posits a few interesting ideas - the role that the Catholic Church has played in sheltering Nazi collaborators from justice and whether it is right to pursue an otherwise penitent man for crimes committed fifty years earlier. Given the subject matter, a director with a record for top-notch entertainments, a first-rate cast and a script by the redoubtable Ronald Harwood, the film itself never catches fire, at best passing the time rather than actively engaging the emotions.
One fault may be in accepting the high-toned, plummy British cast as French, (Tilda Swinton gives a terrible performance as the judge on the trail of Michael Caine's war criminal). On the plus side, Caine himself, Cockney accent notwithstanding, gives a superlative performance as the hunted criminal, casually out-classing everyone around him.
One fault may be in accepting the high-toned, plummy British cast as French, (Tilda Swinton gives a terrible performance as the judge on the trail of Michael Caine's war criminal). On the plus side, Caine himself, Cockney accent notwithstanding, gives a superlative performance as the hunted criminal, casually out-classing everyone around him.