The Offence

After allowing himself to be dragged back to United Artists and the Bond fold for Diamonds Are Forever, Sean Connery was given the chance to instigate a feature or two of his own choosing. The sole result of this opportunity turned out to be 1972's The Offence, directed by Sidney Lumet and based on a play by John Hopkins. The Offence is a tense, claustrophobic thing; a series of fraught overlapping interviews dealing with the fallout of a particularly revolting series of crimes. The film begins as an indistinct blur that drifts in and around a police station. The frame is blighted by a glaring superimposed lamp, speech muffled and warped as if underwater. A rash of lurching thuds ring out, and everyone starts to panic, racing to a secluded room. We arrive at the conclusion: a confused cornered Connery glaring at several prone bodies. He's tense and prowling, like a startled animal.

We're taken back through events that begin to explain a fairly standard sequence of reactionary violence - Connery's Detective Johnson creates an opportunity to question a suspected child molester. Convinced of his guilt he begins to physically intimidate him to force a confession, going too far and critically injuring him. At this point we are allowed to understand Johnson as a plodding avenger performing equaliser violence. The audience is notionally pleased upfront, but The Offence delves deeper, essaying the psychological make-up of such sure and steady thuggery. Opening reel aside, the film is primarily constructed in the form of your average police procedural. Drama is confined to dour utilitarian spaces, and confrontations spin on reams of raw, wordy dialogue. When Johnson is sent home to cool off the film begins to change tact, brief snatches of appalling violence begin to intrude, poking in from Johnson's fracturing psyche. Memory and fantasy mix and become indistinguishable. Initially The Offence seems to be digging into this horror as a way of explaining Johnson's brutalised state. Slowly though The Offence begins to ration out the extent of Johnson's damage, puncturing any idea that Connery is playing another variation of a male ideal. Peculiar behaviour and dead-end mutterings take on ever changing mood and meaning, escalating into a profound sense of disquiet.