Metacritic reviews

The Offence is almost the definition of murk, unrelenting and unforgiving.

The atmosphere and performances are sustained at a terrifying pitch, and the movie ends suddenly, leaving the audience to deal with the ideas and emotions aroused.

A splendid, unjustly neglected 1973 British film in which Sean Connery, at his very best under Sidney Lumet's direction, plays a veteran police sergeant haunted by years of contact with terrible crimes and on the brink of a total breakdown. [27 May 1990, p.10]

Few genre films come as close to entering the abyss as Sidney Lumet’s The Offence, which effectively plays out as one elongated interrogation both of a single witness and the tortured psyche of Sergeant Johnson (Sean Connery).

The revelations explode predictably, like the ingredients of a 24-hour cold capsule, but the dramatic impact is real while one is watching it.

There's a powerful confrontation of authority and accused between police sergeant Sean Connery and suspected child molester Ian Bannen in Sidney Lumet's The Offence. A brilliant scene, however, does not in itself make for a brilliant overall feature.

A powerful and complex performance by Connery is somewhat weakened by Lumet's typically stiff and stagey direction, which tends to sap the life out of the film.

An interesting but not entirely rewarding inversion on Lumet’s continued study of law enforcement.