Slick, predictable, Hollywood-calibre romantic melodrama

Rating: Null/10 (13 September 2012)

Some of the best movies I've ever seen came from Argentina, but the more like American movies they become the less interesting they become. Maybe this one was made with winning an Oscar in mind, to please Hollywood audiences, and that's why it's so superficial and annoying and predictable - and popular.
The hallmark of an American movie is good-guys-versus-bad-guys melodrama, in which the bad guys are REALLY BAD and the good guys are REALLY GOOD; the bad guys win at first so we get all indignant and outraged, and then the advantage lurches back and forth between good and bad a few times before finally the good guys win, the good guy who's not good enough for the girl wins her heart anyway, and they ride off into the sunset together holding hands. That's been the Hollywood formula for more than a hundred years, and it's The Secret in Their Eyes in a nutshell.
This sleek, glossy, superficial movie could just as easily have been made in Hollywood with George Clooney and Julia Roberts (no... she's too old: whoever the latest Julia Roberts is) - and maybe it will be. They can do better than this in Argentina, but (as with movie makers the world over) less money nearly always makes a better movie. I'll just toss this one on the pile with Avatar and watch Plan B or Burnt Money again.