Secret in Their Eyes **½ (2015, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Nicole Kidman, Julia Roberts) – Movie Review

In 2015, another ex-team member, Ray Kasten (Chiwetel Ejiofor), returns to LA and tells the district attorney, Claire (Nicole Kidman), that he has found a lead and convinces her reluctantly to reopen the case…

So first there’s Billy Ray’s jittery, nervous, unfocused direction to contend with. The cast is notable and an obvious attraction, but they are not really on quite their best form. Even though the cinematographer Daniel Moder is Roberts’s husband (in their their third collaboration), he makes her look terribly weary and drained. But then that’s the part: she hasn’t finished mourning her daughter after 13 years. Brave of Roberts to look so scarily unstarry and ancient. Her part is the third one in the scheme of things, but she does gamely make her limited screen time count.

Ejiofor comes off best in the star role as Ray, now working in the private sector, who has never given up on finding the killer. Nor has he given up on the now married Claire, whom he still loves. Of the star trio, it’s Kidman, surprisingly who is the weakest link, never persuading you that she is a DA, that she is American (with her accent swapping from Australian to North American), or that she might somewhere be holding a secret candle for Ray.

The script does a good job with detailing police procedures and institutional corruption, and does a convincing run-through of the idea that a rapist-murderer could be let free as a pawn in the fight against terrorism. And the story has a big, chilling payoff worth the wait. Unfortunately, much of the long build-up is sluggish and unconvincing, but also much of it is well staged, with some excellent set pieces.

In the end, it feels like a missed opportunity, that is if remaking an acclaimed modern classic is an opportunity. But it is still a respectful, thoughtful, suspenseful and entirely watchable thriller.

Billy Ray’s screenplay is based on the film El secreto de sus ojos [The Secret in Their Eyes] written by Juan José Campanella and Eduardo Sacheri, based on the novel La pregunta de sus ojos by Eduardo Sacheri.

The cast are Chiwetel Ejiofor as Raymond “Ray” Kasten, Nicole Kidman as Claire Sloan, Julia Roberts as Jessica “Jess” Cobb, Dean Norris as Bumpy Willis, Michael Kelly as Reginald “Reg” Siefert, Alfred Molina as Martin Morales, Zoe Graham as Carolyn Cobb, Lyndon Smith as Kit, Joe Cole as Anzor Marzin / Clay Beckwith, Donald Patrick Harvey as Fierro, Mark Famiglietti as Duty Sergeant Jacobs, and Ross Partridge as Ellis.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Movie Review

Link to Derek Winnert’s home page for more reviews: http://derekwinnert.com/