In "The Statement," as he famously did with "In the Heat of the Night," director Norman Jewison uses the framework of an investigative thriller to examine vital political and moral issues. For "The Statement" burrows into the tricky morass of wartime France, Nazi war crimes, the Catholic Church's alleged complicity and protection still provided to war criminals by high government officials. While the moral issues at stake in each movie are not that dissimilar, the sad truth is that mainstream American audiences lack the curiosity or historical understanding to take an interest in a political thriller that delves into so "foreign" a topic.

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