"The Statement" deserves far better ratings than critics have given it. In the first place, it's NOT about an ex-Nazi in flight. It's about a French collaborator, the Vichy Government, France's failure to confront the role its officials -- some still in power -- played in the Holocaust, and the efforts of right wingers in the Catholic Church to shelter the collaborator. Michael Caine is superb in the leading role, and Tilda Swinton and Jeremy Northam are excellent as the judge and army colonel who are trying to bring him to justice while those who formerly hid him seek to execute him, blaming a non-existent group of Jewish vigilantes. The supporting cast, which includes the wonderful Charlotte Rampling in a minor role as the collaborator's undivorced wife, is also quite good. I don't see how anyone can complain that this movie "drags." While there are legitimate criticisms that could be made about unexplained motives, the action moves at the appropriate pace given the complexity of the story it is telling.

After France fell to Germany in 1940 , the Vichy regime was set up under Marshal Petain . In 1943 , the Vichy government created a military force called Milice to carry out the Nazi occupiers . When the war was over many of those involved were prosecuted for war crimes . Some get away . A few rose to power . Pierre Brossard ( Michael Caine ) committed crimes against humanity and collaborated with Nazis in WWII . Today Pierre follows hidden by priests of Catholic Church that sheltered him during fifty years and is being protected by a strange sect called The Chevaliers of St. Marie . But a judge ( Tilda Swinton ) and a colonel ( Jeremy Northam ) are investigating his past . Meanwhile , a mysterious murderous ( Matt Craven) is pursuing Pierre to kill him .

This TV movie produced by Canadian television in association with BBC packs suspense , mystery , thrills , action and is quite entertaining . Jewison cast some largely known actors as Michael Caine , his wife well played by Charlote Rampling , the starring duo as Tilda Swinton and Jeremy Northam , and a remarkable support cast as Ciaran Hinds as Inspector Pochon , Alan Bates as Bertier , Frank Finlay as the Comissaire and several others . Atmospheric musical score by Norman Corbeil and appropriate cinematography by Kevin Jewison , director's son . The motion picture is professionally produced and directed by Norman Jewison . He is a prestigious and veteran filmmaker, his greatest film is of course Jesus Christ Superstar . He considers The Hurricane (1999) the last in a trilogy of racial bigotry movies he's realized, the first two being In the Heat of the Night (1967) and A Soldier's Story (1984).

The film terminates with an epilogue based on real events , that says the following : ¨At 5:00 am , on June 29, 1944, in Rilleux -La-Pape, France, seven Jews were executed ¨. The movie is dedicated to those seven men and the 77.000 other French Jews who perished under German occupation and the Vichy regime .

Michael Caine plays a pathetic wretch who, 40 years ago, participated in the murder of seven Jews in France. Certain rogue elements within the Catholic Church have been hiding him, shuffling him from place to place, and another organization has been sending him money from time to time. I'm a little confused about the other organization. I think it may have been founded by his fellow executioners, also war criminals, but it wasn't easy to follow.

Caine is a marvelous actor, but this thoroughly dramatic role of a devout Frenchman, suffering from heart failure, tortured by guilt and constantly praying, is almost beyond him. He is forced to shoot two assassins sent after him by his fellow war criminals, and at those points the movie comes to life, so to speak.

So there are two conflicting interests in pursuit of him -- the police who want to put him in jail, and the assassins who want to kill him before he is caught and makes a deal with the gendarmes. The assassins get there first.

Caine is such a pitiful figure, stumbling about and asking for help when cornered, that one is reminded at times of much better films like "Odd Man Out" and "M". We more or less know from the beginning that no Vichy war criminal is going to escape and live happily ever after, so watching Caine huffing and puffing around on rooftops and constantly asking priests for absolution is painful. And repetitive too. Halfway through I began wishing the cops would get him -- or the assassins for that matter -- or that he would expire from an acute infraction of the myoculinary -- just to get it over with.

The Catholic church comes off pretty badly. The Vatican wants nothing to do with him. The monks who are his old friends are told to stop helping him. Except for his demons, no one is interested in him. His patron saint, he claims, is St. Christopher, whom I thought had been kicked out of the Pantheon years ago. If I'm right, then he's praying to a discredited saint. (Is this supposed to be symbolism?) It would have been spot on if he'd chosen St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes, whose medallion I have so aptly clipped to the visor of my Ford.

At any rate, we don't see him do anything that could be construed as a reflection of his Nazi-tainted past. He's weak, old, and scared to death. (Come to think of it, he looks a little like Max von Sydow with his gray hair.) It's true that he threatens to kill his wife's dog if she doesn't put him up. And it's true that he offhandedly boots the dog out of the way when he gets underfoot. I hope that's not a crime worth being executed for.

Caine's performance is so weary and ridden with Angst that I kind of wished he'd get away to Quebec or somewhere. He was involved in those seven murders and should pay for it. At the same time his soul has been in jail for more than 40 years. His best bet, of course, would have been to give himself up to the police, confess openly to his crimes, and spend the rest of his life in jail. It's too easy for a priest to listen to him and say "Ego te absolvo, now go away." You commit a sin, you do penance for it.

I don't want to get into the moral implications any further because they're pretty muddled. I'm not really sure what the film's point of view is. Is it that the Catholic church is corrupt and anti-Semitic? Is it that repentant sinners deserve to be shot to death by criminals?

It's one of the lesser works by director Jewison, Michael Caine, and most of the other involved. The photography, of Provence, is nice. And the shrike-like woman detective is good too, all angular and sharp eyes. But it's a slow slog overall.