Has the hallmarks of a top-notch Jewison production -- splendid performances, especially from leads Michael Caine, Tilda Swinton and Jeremy Northam, a pulse-quickening pace and production values that establish story and character within a distinct environment.

There's a sensational, highly original performance by Swinton.

Partly because of Caine and partly because of meticulous work by veteran director Norman Jewison, The Statement is a fiction done so effectively, it rings true -- even slick lines that may otherwise be rancid.

The resulting political thriller is more intriguing than riveting, flattened by Jewison's plodding direction and distracting use of British actors to play French characters.

Never comes together as a persuasive whole. Instead of moral complexity, we get an overfamiliar pursuit tale and investigation story. Worse, the movie fails the first test of a thriller: It lacks any significant suspense.

The Statement is an older man's film, and compassion is one of its strengths; Jewison and Caine make us feel pity and terror for the victims as well.

As a thriller, The Statement is relatively disappointing, but as a moral study, the movie proves far more promising.

Not quite a thriller and not quite a character study, though with elements of both, the film is limited by its ambiguous relation to history.

Positioned as a tense political thriller, Jewison's film is high on the (somewhat confusing) politics but falls a little short on the thrills.

The film seems more an excuse to attack a target than an exercise in solid storytelling.

Tedious "message movie" proves hunting war criminals amid right-wing Catholic conspirators can be plenty dull.

As depicted here, the political story becomes convoluted and dramatically inert.

I don't require that a movie have a message, but in a message movie it is helpful to know what the message is.

In Jewison's hands, this cat-and-mouse game plays like third-rate John Le Carré, treading lethargically over high-minded intrigue that mixes fact, fiction, and unlikely speculation in dubious relation to the historical record.