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    Home»Movies»Movies by Decade»Movies - 1970s
    Movies - 1970s Movies - O 2 Mins Read

    Offence, The (1973)

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    Detective Sergeant Johnson (Sean Connery) has been with the British Police Force for 20 years.

    In that time, the countless murders, rapes and other serious crimes he has had to investigate have left a mark on him and the anger and aggression he has suppressed for years finally surfaces when interviewing Kenneth Baxter (Ian Bannen), a suspect who Johnson believes is the child molester responsible for a series of brutal attacks on young girls.

    Throughout the interview, Johnson brutally beats Baxter in a harrowing, tragic face-off that leads to a long, dark night of the soul in which all the horrors, missteps and dismembered bodies Johnson has psychically stockpiled during his time on the force coalesce into a grisly bill that he has no hope of meeting.

    Johnson ends up beating Baxter to death and the film then examines what drove the detective to do it, through individual scenes with his wife, Maureen (Vivien Merchant) and Cartwright (Trevor Howard), the internal affairs officer investigating the beating.

    The final third of the film takes us step by step through the interrogation, as Baxter turns the psychological tables on Johnson, making the detective see exactly the sort of animal he has become as a result of two decades of dealing unrelentingly with violence and death.

    American filmmaker Sidney Lumet brought a keen outsider’s eye to this deliriously depressing slab of British noir and Sean Connery is at his cruel, bullying best as the immoral detective.

    The film displeased United Artists – who funded it as a thank you to Connery for wigging his way through the previous year’s Diamonds Are Forever and who didn’t want 007 to be viewed as any more of a pitiless shitbag than strictly necessary.

    The Offence went unreleased in many countries but its outstanding quality remains undeniable. As does its capacity to unsettle. It’s a fine masterpiece by a masterful director.

    Detective Sergeant Johnson
    Sean Connery
    Lieutenant Cartwright, Detective Superintendent
    Trevor Howard
    Maureen Johnson
    Vivien Merchant
    Kenneth Baxter
    Ian Bannen
    Detective Inspector Cameron
    Peter Bowles
    Frank Jessard
    Derek Newark
    Lawson
    Ronald Radd
    Panton
    John Hallam
    Garrett
    Richard Moore
    Hill
    Anthony Sagar
    Janie Edmonds, the Raped Girl
    Maxine Gordon
    Woman on Common
    Hilda Fenemore
    Woman at School
    Rhoda Lewis
    Child at School
    Cynthia Lund
    Lambert
    Howard Goorney

    Director
    Sidney Lumet

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