Secret in Their Eyes (2015)

Absolutely Fantastic

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

It has all the promises of a great story driven film, but somehow didn't keep my concentration constant. Possible the most realistic acting from Julia Roberts. Just feel had it have been tweaked just a little more it would have been a very impacting, worth watching all the same

This was miserably confusing and I did not realize till the end when the male lead went to the house of the victims mother that this was a takeoff of the really very good Argentina film I had seen some years ago.Can't recommend it at all.

***SPOILERS*** Based on a 2010 Argentine film by the same name the US version has ex-US government agent now head of New York Mets security Ray Kesten, Chlwetel Ejlofor, go hog wild in solving his partner Jessica Cobb's, played by former "Pretty Woman" Julia Roberts,18 year old daughter Carolyn's,Zoe Graham, murder that has since gone cold. That after her body was found and bleached of all DNA evidence 13 years ago in a dumpster outside the L.A Al-Kakara mosque months after the 9/11 attacks on NYC and Washington D.C.The fact that Carolyn's suspected killer a hot walker at the Santa Anita racetrack Marzin,Joe Cole, is being protected by the local police and FBI as an undercover El-Qeada informant makes him immune from arrest even if in fact he did murder Carolyn. This leads Jessica to suffer a nervous breakdown with the D.A on the case Claire Sloane, Nichole "I kid you not" Kidman, keeping Kesten on a short lease in not blowing Marzin's cover by arresting him.***SPOILERS*** Still Kesten does all he can do to make Marzin's life miserable and even D.A Sloane finally lend a hand, a bit reluctantly, in while she's interrogating Marzin ends up exposing her boobs to him to get a sex crazed Marzin to make a grab for them in order to have him arrested on a sex related charge. This has a hot and angry Kesten work Marzin over that could in fact lead to him being arrested and charged with police brutality.***MAJOR SPOILER***We later find out that Marzin or Beckwith, the real killer's name, has been held captive all these years by Jessica in a basement and given the full treatment-or torture-by her for what he did to her daughter Carolyn. The ending has Kesten dig a ditch as Jessica finally does away with Marzin that would end up being his final resting place.

With the flashbacks, it takes a while to understand what is going on in this vigilante justice film.The acting is good, but only at the end do we learn of the love interest between the Kidman and male characters. Kidman's character needed more depth. Julia Roberts is good as the investigator whose daughter was murdered. Again, at the end, she reveals a secret most shocking but again most appropriate.Who was that misfit of a guy who everyone spends the entire film chasing after? He even looked like a killer.Roberts is at her best during her hysteria tantrums when she finds out that her daughter was the victim of a rape and subsequently murdered.