a solid page turner of a mystery movie, with a few truly great scenes

Rating: 8/10 (16 June 2010)

One of Howard Hawks' axioms was "A film should have three good scenes and no bad ones," meaning, basically, wow them a few times, and just make sure you don't suck too much. The Secret in Their Eyes is one of those kinds of movies, and while I wasn't impressed quite enough to agree with the Academy (awarding it Best Foreign film at the Oscars over truly magnificent films like The White Ribbon and Un Prophete), it gives an audience what it wants: believable and unpredictable characters, and a story that flips around through time but doesn't get too confusing. Certainly this is the kind of mystery movie, like a recent Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, that could potentially play to mass audiences (say, a small theater at a cineplex at a mall) and do pretty decently. That it's sometimes dark and a little crazy, with a couple of terrific performances, helps greatly.
In the film, we follow a rape/murder case that starts in 1974 for Benjamin Esposito (Ricardo Darin), who is called Counselor but is basically a detective. He and his partner, Sandoval (excellent drunk side-character played by Francella), are trying to solve this case, where a woman was brutally raped and murdered, but the killer is elusive, seemingly disappeared. But then there are some clues that arise, the "Passion" element, and (spoiler) the killer is discovered. But this is barely even through the halfway point, and the twists keep coming after this, with constant inter-cutting from 1974 to 1999 when Esposito, having finished a book, still has his memories of what happened in the case, how something about it ended, be it what happened with the killer, and Sandoval, and the widower himself, Morales (Pablo Rago), doesn't sit well with him.
It makes some sense looking up the director Juan Camponella, that he's directed far more episodes of Law & Order SVU and House than he has films since it really does work best as a kind of conventional murder- mystery (or just straight up 'what happened') story. And, like on those shows, when twists happen the audience is meant to go "Wow" or "Oh my God". This is all well and good, but what about the artistry of it? Well, aside from the stellar acting, mostly by Francella and in his few minutes on screen Javier Godino as the perp (plus some sexy-without- trying acting by Villamil), it's those three scenes that stick out best.
One of these is when Espositio and Sandoval, having tracked the "passion" element to soccer, go to a soccer match, after a whole month of going to games and trying to see if the killer will show up. He finally is spotted, somehow, and runs. The camera-work in this scene is very much of the intense hand-held sometimes-shaky variety, but it's never false in its intentions, and the length of the shots are impressive as well. The standard shooting of a lot of the rest of the movie- save for some impressive and intentionally exceptional close-ups on some things- is broken up by this. Another scene is an interrogation, and this involves Esposito's boss, played by Villamil. This is the kind of interrogation scene that one wishes were this smart and harrowing as on Law & Order; you really don't know how far the characters will take the scene, but you know the actors are game and it makes it exciting.
The last really great scene comes near the end, and while I can't reveal it- not as a spoiler but just as to not spoil the fun- its a combination of horrifying cinematography (or 'dark' kind), and the subtlety of the acting. When Camponella is able to strike the iron hot, The Secret in Their Eyes works amazing. The rest of the film is good too, just not as extraordinary as it thinks it might be, or could be. It's an interesting testament to mourning and memory, the loss or lack of love and what justice really means.