Movie review: Secret In Their Eyes

Secret In Their Eyes starring Julia Roberts, Nicole Kidman and Chiwetel Ejiofor.

When the Argentinian thriller The Secret in Their Eyes walked away with the 2010 Oscar for best foreign film, it was tempting to think that it benefited from a split vote between Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon and Jacques Audiard's A Prophet, of which were works of more substantial mastery.

Still, the South American film was a dense and evocative thriller that set a police procedural in the context of the republic's "dirty war", and wove a love story through it all, making for a film that was, as much as anything else, about memory and the unattainability of reconciliation, whether personal or national.

You can see this American remake (which inexplicably drops a "the" so the title doesn't make much sense) struggling for a similar breadth of vision, but it never gets there. The script, by director Ray (who wrote The Hunger Games and Captain Phillips as well as classy arthouse pics Breach and Shattered Glass) uses the aftermath of 9/11 as a political backdrop, but it is more of a distraction and a plot contrivance than part of the film's world.

More fatally, it fails to bring the threads together at the end: both the central love story and the question of political corruption are left dangling in favour of an overwritten ending.

Ejiofor and Roberts play LA-based FBI agents Ray and Jess, attached to the office of newly appointed DA Claire (Kidman). Attending a murder scene, they're horrified to discover the victim is Jess' teen daughter, but their investigation is complicated by the fact that their prime suspect (Cole) is a valuable snitch in a counter-terrorism operation that is their bosses' pet project.

Flitting back and forth between two eras, 13 years apart (in the present day, Roberts, hollowed out by grief, is a gaunt and ghostly presence), the film punishes inattention - indeed, some passages verge on the incoherent. And Ray's unrequited passion for Claire, which was part of the skeleton of the original story, is an accoutrement of this one: it becomes something closer to a running gag the heart of the matter.

Still, it maintains a cracking pace, and the cast, assisted by excellent supporting work from Norris (Breaking Bad's Hank) and Kelly (Spacey's hitman Stamper in House of Cards), make a tight trio whose shared history is an almost unbearable burden.

Ray has also preserved several of the original's set pieces: a single-shot chase through a crowded stadium and a taunting, risky interrogation in which Claire extracts a confession by telling someone why he could not possibly be guilty.

Judged on its own terms, it's a cut above routine - and the ending's reveal is heart-stopping - but those who enjoyed the original may find it comes up short.

Movie: Secret In Their Eyes
Cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Nicole Kidman, Julia Roberts, Dean Norris, Michael Kelly, Joe Cole
Director: Billy Ray
Rating: M (violence and offensive language)
Running time: 111 mins
Verdict: A cut above routine Julia Roberts, Nicole Kidman and Chiwetel Ejiofor.