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After returning to save the James Bond franchise with "Diamonds Are Forever," Sean Connery made a complete left-field choice for his next role. In "The Offence," he plays a stressed-out police officer on the verge of a nervous breakdown who is in a physical and psychological battle with a paedophile suspect he has in custody. Connery's character is also struggling with his own paedophile tendencies. It is an adaptation of John Hopkins play "This Story of Yours." It is essentially a two-hander for the most part with Connery and Ian Bannen (as the paedophile) trying to get the better of one another in the interrogation room of a police station.

Even though Sean Connery won his only Oscar for "The Untouchables", for me, this is by far his best performance. He is an absolute powerhouse in this going from shouting, snarling rage to raving and ranting about paedophiles to then sobbing like a child and begging forgiveness.

Ian Bannen is, if anything, even better than Connery here. His character veers from confused innocence to leering guilt, from screaming frustration to self-pity and then back to arrogance. It's an amazing performance. Sadly, Ian Bannen was killed in a car crash a few years back. A huge loss to the acting community.

While "The Offence" on the surface seems like a very British police procedural drama, it was, surprisingly, directed by the American Sidney Lumet. Like Lumet's best movies ("Twelve Angry Men," "The Hill", "Serpico" and "Dog Day Afternoon") this film features a character in an extremely pressurized situation. It's brave film-making at its darkest. Hollywood certainly took notice as Lumet was chosen to direct a young Al Pacino in two of his breakthrough movies "Serpico" in 1973 and "Dog Day Afternoon" in 1975 after this.

This is the kind of film that would not only never be made today, to even suggest it as an idea for a film would probably be the end of your career. So, if you're tired of CGI monsters and explosions and you want to experience raw acting at its finest, get a copy of this film. It is uncomfortable viewing due to its disturbing subject matter, but you won't see better acting anywhere. Highly recommended.

Arguably the best of Sidney Lumet's British films, this one benefits from a brilliant script by John Hopkins and a tour-de-force performance by Sean Connery as a cop who's been pushed too far. The interrogation scenes between him and an excellent Ian Bannen, as the prime suspect in a child molestation case, are riveting. Hopkins' dialogue is uncannily subtle in its gradual illumination of the psychological states of its two antagonists. Vivien Merchant is exceptional as Connery's emotionally-drained spouse. Gerry Fisher's cold, muted photography perfectly captures the sterility and bleakness of post-modern England. This is not a fun film, but its truths about the fragility of the human psyche are eloquently conveyed.

Sean Connery is more a superstar than an actor. Although his talents have been recognised by the Academy (for his rather unconvincing turn as an Irish cop in The Untouchables (1987)) and remembered for his role as the first James Bond, he is high up on his own pedestal, a gift for voice actors and one of the handsomest faces ever to have graced the screen. But anyone in doubt of his ability as a proper thespian need look no further than his grim, tormented portrayal of a cop who has seen one too many dead bodies in Sidney Lumet's The Offence, a huge flop at the box office and a film now faded into memory, ripe for a re-discovery.

Playing with time Rashomon (1950)-style, the film begins in slow motion, where an unknown disturbance at a police station has a few officers panicked. It is revealed to be Detective Sergeant Johnson (Connery) standing over the bloodied body of suspect Kenneth Baxter (Ian Bannen), with fellow police officers scattered on the floor. It then goes back, and we are in a grey, miserable city gripped in panic as a child-killing paedophile roams free. The latest disappearance of a young girl has Johnson riled, and officers cruising the street pick up Baxter, who is wandering alone in the night covered in mud. The young girl is found raped but alive by Johnson himself, who insists on spending some time alone with the suspect.

Based on John Hopkins' stage play This Story of Yours, Connery fought tooth-and-nail to adapt it for the big screen, eventually reprising his role as Bond in Diamond Are Forever (1971) in return for the green-light. Although the film consists of long, talky scenes, Lumet uses stylish editing in order to avoid being stagy and to delve further into his anti-hero's head. His reputation as a no- nonsense director betrays him here, as scenes of gruesome murders, body parts, and a host of other atrocities Johnson has witnessed flash before our eyes. The use of slow motion in the flashback moments also employs a sort of circular filter at the centre of the screen, reflecting Johnson's disconnection from his actions but getting slightly tiresome in the process.

There are three long, outstanding scenes. The first is Johnson returning home to his wife (Vivien Merchant) following his interrogation of Baxter, drinking heavily and exploding at the one person who could possibly help him. The second is Johnson's own interrogation with superintendent Cartwright (the ever-excellent Trevor Howard), a man who has witnessed the same level of horror himself, but has learnt to separate his work from his life, something Johnson is unable to do. The third is the extended interrogation of Baxter, where Bannen's creepy turn surely must have been an inspiration for the Joker-Batman verbal showdown in The Dark Knight (2008). It's incredibly bleak stuff, but the raw honesty of the script and performances makes this powerful stuff.

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To me "The offence" is a must. I think this film deserves to be rediscovered and reaprecciated, because it shows two giants of the cinema at their peak.

Actually the film stars Sean Connery -here in his first role after quitting the official James Bond series-, he's directed by his long time friend Sidney Lumet, one of the most talented American directors. The movie is like a theatrical piece, there's not much action. Everything stands on the actors and their expressions, the atmosphere is dark and depressing. But this is is the goal of the story. Sean is a 40 years old policeman, who faces again with a case of child abuse. He's used to deal with the most miserable stories of humanity... But this time his rage and frustrations explode: he beats a suspected person (Ian Bannen) and loses the control, he kills him. He's suspended from the service.

The movie is a psychological study of a hard man, who loses his dignity and understands too late he's a disturbed man as well. "The offence" is a small British film, a big contrast to the lavish 007 productions. We have not a hero here, we have an actor who proves once more to be a wonderful performer -here the desperation of his character is really deep.

In 1972 the movie didn't enjoy a big success, it has been revalued with the time. (maybe the story was too sad and disturbing for being a hit). Today it's considered a milestone in Connery's career. Of course it is.

A burnt-out British police detective investigates some astonishing crimes but after 20 years what Inspector-Sergeant Johnson (Sean Connery) has seen and done is destroying him. Things go wrong when eventually snaps whilst interrogating a suspected child molester called Baxter (Ian Bannen) . During the course of the interrogation takes place several surprises , twists and unexpected consequences.

Interesting and grim picture with tight editing , magnificent acting , thrills , plot twists , emotion and intense drama . It was originally conceived as a tense as well as thrilling flick about a complex interrogatory . It results to be an adaptation of a stage play titled : ¨This story of yours¨ by John Hopkings about a claustrophobic and strange duel betwen a suspicious child molester and a police officer obsessively convinced of his guilt , both of whom find themselves subtly changing places . Gripping and exciting picture about a cop who wants to investigate a grisly killing with unexpected consequences , outstanding the great Sean Connery playing very well a London detective who explodes at a police interrogation reacting against a child molester . Embedded in a realistic police procedure , thorny dialog and peculiar situations nowadays have a ring of arty melodrama ; nevertheless, riveting at times. Support cast is really excellent , such as: Trevor Howard, Vivien Merchant as starring's wife , Peter Bowles and especially Ian Bannen as prime suspect in a series of brutal attacks on young girls.

The motion picture was compellingly directed by the splendid US director Sidney Lumet , though here he failed at box-office. After starting an off-Broadway acting troupe in the late 1940s, he became the director of many television shows in the 1950s. Lumet made his feature film Adaptation of directing debut with 12 Angry Men (1957), which won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival and earned three Academy Award nominations. The courtroom drama, which takes place almost entirely in a jury room, is justly regarded as one of the most auspicious directorial debuts in film history. Lumet got the chance to direct Marlon Brando in The Figitive Kind (1960), an imperfect, but powerful adaptation of Tennessee Williams'. Sidney Lumet was a master of cinema , best known for his technical knowledge and his skill at getting first-rate performances from his actors and for shooting most of his films in his beloved New York . He made over 40 movies , often complex and emotional , but seldom overly sentimental . He achieved great successes such as ¨Serpico¨, ¨The Veredict¨, ¨Fail safe¨ , ¨ Morning after¨, ¨The hill¨ , ¨Dog day afternoon¨, ¨Murder on the Orient Express¨ , ¨Network¨ , ¨The Anderson tapes¨and his best considered one : ¨12 angry men¨ . In 2005 , Sidney Lumet received a well-deserved honorary Academy Award for his outstanding contribution to filmmaking. Rating . 6.5/10 . Above average . Well worth watching .