Not a total waste, just not worth the accolades

Rating: 5/10 (3 July 2010)

I watched The Secret In Their Eyes yesterday with a friend. I have not seen The White Ribbon or A Prophet, but if TSITE won an Oscar for best foreign language film, maybe I don't need to see the others.
This film is so flawed it's hard to know where to begin. As another reviewer pointed out, it was difficult to keep the time period straight because the characters looked nearly the same in present and past scenes. That made it difficult to keep track of the storyline.
*** spoiler alert ***
The "clues" that led them to identify the murderer were so thin it was impossible to take any of that seriously. I also had problems trying to figure out what happened in the stadium; and the aerial shot was gratuitous and superfluous--just for show. The ending was interesting, but I found more story holes there, too. Another thing that bothered me was the female lead character's ending up in an empty, passionless marriage. It's hard to imagine such a fierce, self-possessed, successful woman would have settled for that.
All that said, the acting was pretty good--especially actor who played Sandoval. He was engaging and pretty funny. It isn't a complete waste of time and money, just not worthy of all the accolades.