Naïve, goofy script scuttles an otherwise promising effort

Rating: 7/10 (20 November 2013)

Esposito, an investigator for a criminal court in Buenos Aires, IDs a suspect in a rape-murder case by pure instinct and follows his hunch until he attracts the attention of a right-wing death squad (we're back in 1976 or so—Isabel Perón). Meanwhile he also pursues a very tentative office romance with a gorgeous female judge; a hard-drinking colleague supplies comic relief, answering the phone with wisecracks like "Sperm bank! Do you wish to make a deposit or a withdrawal?" I was getting impatient (my wife had already bailed) when the film took a suspenseful, political turn, briefly evoking classics like "Z" and "Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion." Then it went off the rails again, with an ending that can only be described as preposterous. Despite the foreign-language Oscar, the expert performances and cinematography and whatnot, not to mention the glowing reviews on various websites (the Onion AV Club got it right with a B-, en mi humilde opinión), if you're the slightest bit tough-minded about plotting and plausibility (not to mention police procedures), I'd approach this one with caution.