Name of actor: Ian Bannen
Name of film: The Offence
Director: Sidney Lumet
Year: 1973
Poster
Trailer
Why this actor:
Bannen, a Scottish actor, has a complicated deep, twisted, pyschological role to play in this overwhelmingly bleak but compelling crime thriller from 1973, set somewhere in middle England and directed by the great Sidney Lumet, based on the 1968 stage play - This Story of Yours by John Hopkins.
Bannen is Baxter, a suspected child molester, Connery is Johnson, a troubled police officer who takes it on himself to interrogate him at a local police station cell, using his own violent methods. Bannen has to taunt, prod, tease, insinuate, explode and accuse Connery in his defence - to the point where Connery loses it and eventually kills him. Baxter is detestable, ambiguous and utterly committed to this role - he is riveting and holds his own mightily against Connery - how difficult would that have been. The story, mostly told in flashback, leaves Baxter's guilt or innocence open.
At one point Baxter tells Johnson that he has it in him to commit sex crimes like those he is investigating, but hasn't got the bottle. Johnson breaks and hits Baxter - it gets worse- eventually he begs Baxter to help him. When Baxter recoils in disgust, Johnson loses it again - Bannen continues to taunt while dying a horrible death.
His role requires him to be at different times, egocentric, compliant, creepy, secretive, accusatory and prone to rage with dubious motives. His range is incredible in this movie.
He was nominated for a BAFTA award for this performance. He was also nominated for an Oscar for his performance in Flight of the Phoenix (1965) where he plays opposite James Stewart - but for this reviewer, The Offence is where all his awards should have gone.
Connery himself, was keen to shake off his image as James Bond - to expand his range as an actor and apparently agreed to return as Bond in, Diamonds Are Forever, only if David Picker, CEO of United Artists, backed two of Connery's own film projects, provided they cost $2 million or less, in association with Connery's own production company, Tantallon Films.
The Offence, made under the working title, Something Like the Truth was the first. He succeeded in acting against type in a hard bitten and unsympathetic role and chose Bannen to play his opposite. As regards Connery - the film eventually explores his varied, often aggressive attempts at rationalizing what he did, eventually revealing his true motives for the killing to his own investigating officer, Trevor Howard.
Both Connery and Bannen are magnificent - maximum commitment and emotion to this powerful, brave and overlooked film in Lumet's rich back catalogue. Maybe it was just too far away from what people were expecting of Connery.
Bannen himself died 1999. He had a long career in film, on stage, and on television - his Oscar nomination for Flight of the Phoenix made him the first Scottish actor to receive the honour. He received two BAFTA Awards for his performances in The Offence and John Boorman's Hope and Glory (1987).
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