![]() ![]() The good news and the bad news is that nobody is making anything like this. Whenever you’re developing any movie, the odds are against you, just by virtue of the system that we’re trying to navigate - the studio system. Did you ever think it just wasn’t going to happen? ![]() Indiewire recently got on the phone with Ray to talk about why he wanted to remake a film he’s admittedly in awe of and how he went about retrofitted its location, setting and even its core characters. True-Crime Stories Are More Salacious Than Ever - Which Is What Writer Krysty Wilson-Cairns Wants to SubvertĪna de Armas and Michelle Williams Make a Showy Entrance Into the Best Actress Raceįrom 'Reality Bites' to 'Fatal Attraction,' Keep Track of All the Upcoming Film-to-TV Adaptations 'Bones and All': How Director David Gordon Green Landed Unexpected Role in Cannibal Romance Still, the bones of the story are the same, following the fallout from a heinous crime (in this case, the murder of Roberts’ character’s daughter) and the subsequent attempts of a crime-fighting body (now a counter-terrorism force, of which both Ejiofor’s Ray and Roberts’ Jess are members) to bring its perpetrator to justice. ![]() Directed, scripted by Billy Ray from “El secreto de sus ojos.” 127 min.Fans of the original - and there are many, including Ray - will recognize plenty of elements in Ray’s new film, although his Chiwetel Ejiofor and Julia Roberts-starring feature has moved its action to a post-9/11 Los Angeles, a far cry from the late nineties and mid-seventies settings in the Argentinan original. Secret in Their Eyes ✮1/2 With Chiwetel Ejiofor, Nicole Kidman, Julia Roberts, Dean Norris, Alfred Molina, Joe Cole. It was already spoiled by last year’s much better “Prisoners.” “Secret” unravels well before Cole’s can play his winning card, the trick ending. Eventually it becomes clear - by concentrating on the lengths of Roberts’ and Kidman’s hair, the pronounced limp of Kasten’s former partner (well-played by “Breaking Bads’ ” Dean Norris), and the touch of gray at Ejiofor’s temple.īut by then we’ve ceased caring and are left to ponder the mounting procedural blunders (there’s no such thing as a protected crime scene) and the solid-to-stolid performances by the three stars and handful of supporting players, which include Michael Kelly (“House of Cards”) as a department a-hole and Joe Cole as the young murder suspect with, of course, a near-unintelligible Middle Eastern accent. Initially, it’s tough to figure out what decade we’re in because, in terms of fashion and set design, there’s little to distinguish 2002 from 2015. The star-heavy, promising sounding “Secrets,” sadly, is anything but sound, thanks mainly to its unrelentingly dour tone and the confusion caused by flitting back and forth between near-indistinguishable decades. This contrivance alone would sink an otherwise sound cop thriller. Guess what government entity drags its feet when the guilt-ridden Kasten makes it his life’s mission to do Cobb a solid and apprehend her daughter’s killer? (No effort is made here to distinguish good from bad Muslim worshipers.) (No spoiler alert necessary: This is in the trailer.) Her killer also happens to be a valued government snitch, infiltrating some vague but assuredly nefarious doings at a nearby mosque. won’t become “the next 9/11.” Confounding their efforts is the murder of Cobb’s teenage daughter. The film opens in the present with agent Ray Kasten (Ejiofor) returning to his old stomping grounds - to find Jess Cobb (Roberts) now a sunken-eyed cop on the beat and Claire Sloan (Kidman), the unrequited love of his life, now an easily distracted District Attorney.įrom here we flash back to 2002, where all three, in different capacities, are tied to counter-terrorism efforts and a D.A. Ray’s thriller plays out on two timelines, 13 years apart. But Ray botches things badly when attempting to replicate Juan José Campanella’s tricky flashback structure. Obviously writer-director Billy Ray, known primarily as the screenwriter of “Captain Phillips” and the first “ Hunger Games,” was taken with the original film’s shocking twist ending, and, with that as his ace-in-the-hole, so speak, he set about to adapt the material to post-9/11 Los Angeles. ![]() remake feel like they were applied with old plaster and trowel. Ejiofor plays a homicide detective-turned-homeland security investigator-turned-preoccupied former FBI agent.ĭon’t feel lonely. Roberts and Nicole Kidman turn out to be key supporting players Chiwetel Ejiofor of “12 Years a Slave” is the real star of this murder mystery-conspiracy thriller adapted from “ The Secret in Their Eyes,” the 2009 Spanish-Argentinean Oscar winner. The advance publicity surrounding “Secret in Their Eyes” suggests a Julia Roberts vehicle with Roberts bent on vigilante justice. ![]()
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