Justice or revenge? If someone close to you was murdered, what would you want and what would happen if you didn’t get what you wanted? That conundrum is at the heart of this thriller. I like a good police whodunit, an involving mystery that entangles you until the final frames. You might think you have a fix on what has gone down, but you really don’t … and so it is here.
District Attorney investigator Jess (Julia Roberts), FBI sleuth Ray (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and Deputy District Attorney Claire (Nicole Kidman) are rising stars. They have been selected to serve on an anti-terrorism joint task force in post 9/11 Los Angeles. Jess and Ray are partners who share a deep respect and an easy friendship, both on and off the job. Ray and Claire come from opposite walks of life, but have a complicated attraction that is a prevailing undercurrent in their day-to-day encounters. After Ray and Jess are called to investigate a murder, they discover the unthinkable – the victim is Jess’s teenage daughter. They join forces with Claire to bring the killer to justice, but more than a decade later that still hasn’t happened. When Ray discovers a new lead, he has to convince Claire to revisit the case. What they uncover is more than they expected.
The film has been written and is directed by Academy Award nominee Billy Ray (Captain Phillips, The Hunger Games). When he was constructing the movie, Ray didn’t want to create distance between 2002 and 2015. He felt the here and now had to be an echo of want happened back then. That caused me a few problems while watching the resultant picture; because the players are the same, they don’t look all that different 13 years on. In other words, it takes your mind a few seconds to adjust every time you are meant to. Even though you can follow the story once you have allowed for that transition, I felt that juxtaposition wasn’t painted clearly enough. Arguably, it would have taken a greater change in wardrobe and in facial appearance.
Three top-notch actors fill the key roles, but as good as Chiwetel Ejiofor is, his fervour appeared to me to be a tad too extreme, notwithstanding that this is a film about obsession.
Although compelling to a point, the US version didn’t quite reach the heights of its Argentinian forebear. Nevertheless, writer and director Bill Ray has crafted the equivalent of a page-turner, so Secret in Their Eyes is still worth a look. Rated M, it scores a 6½ to 7 out of 10.
Director: Billy Ray
Cast: Julia Roberts, Dean Norris, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Nicole Kidman
Release Date: 19 November 2015
Rating: M
Alex First
David Edwards is the editor of The Blurb and a contributor on film and television