Directed by:
Sidney LumetScreenplay:
John HopkinsCinematography:
Gerry FisherCast:
Sean Connery, Trevor Howard, Vivien Merchant, Ian Bannen, Peter Bowles, Howard Goorney, Ronald Radd, John Hallam, Brian Grellis, Richard Moore, Hilda Fenemore (more)VOD (2)
Plots(1)
A harrowing and compellingly constructed chamber drama of police brutality and mental anguish, THE OFFENCE takes director Sidney Lumet's obsession with the policeman's conflicted position as his brother's keeper into the realms of the psychological thriller. Sean Connery is devastatingly desperate as Officer Johnson, a 20-year veteran of the police force on the trail of a serial child molester. As the film begins, Lumet immediately plunges the viewer into a climax of crisis and violence with Johnson at the center. With a shuffling and halting narrative, the events leading to Johnson's mysterious breakdown unfurl. When a young girl becomes the latest victim of the child molester, Johnson is unhinged after he finds the victim, naked and wounded in the marshes on the outskirts of town. Baxter (Ian Bannen), a teetering and dazed man, is picked up wandering in the center of town and becomes Johnson's primary suspect. The interrogation that follows is a swift descent into hell, as the torture of 20 years of police work slowly seeps out of Johnson's fetid soul and turns the questioning into a brutal verbal and physical showdown, seemingly to the death. (official distributor synopsis)
(more)Cast
Sean Connery
UK
Best movies:
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
The Rock (1996)
The Untouchables (1987)
Trevor Howard
UK
Best movies:
Producers' Showcase (1954) (series)
Gandhi (1982)
Brief Encounter (1945)
Vivien Merchant
UK
Best movies:
Frenzy (1972)
Alfie (1966)
The Man in the Iron Mask (1977) (TV movie)
Ian Bannen
UK
Best movies:
Braveheart (1995)
The Hill (1965)
Gandhi (1982)
Peter Bowles
UK
Best movies:
Blow-Up (1966)
Agatha Christie: Poirot (1989) (series)
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)
Howard Goorney
UK
Best movies:
Fiddler on the Roof (1971)
The Hill (1965)
Savage Messiah (1972)
Ronald Radd
UK
Best movies:
The Double Man (1967)
The Camp on Blood Island (1958)
The Offence (1973)
John Hallam
UK
Best movies:
The Last Valley (1971)
Cadfael (1994) (series)
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991)
Brian Grellis
UK
Best movies:
Threads (1984) (TV movie)
Battle of Britain (1969)
Fear in the Night (1972)
Richard Moore
UK
Best movies:
Lady Jane (1986)
Juggernaut (1974)
The Offence (1973)
Hilda Fenemore
UK
Best movies:
The War Lover (1962)
The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953)
Absolution (1978)
Derek Newark
UK
Best movies:
Where Eagles Dare (1968)
Masada (1981) (series)
War and Remembrance (1988) (series)
Fred Wood
UK
Best movies:
Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977)
The Elephant Man (1980)
Gandhi (1982)
Anthony Sagar
UK
Best movies:
The Early Bird (1965)
The One That Got Away (1957)
Chain of Events (1957)
Rhoda Lewis
UK
Best movies:
Dalziel and Pascoe (1996) (series)
August (1996)
Florence Foster Jenkins (2016)