Academy Award winner, a gritty crime thriller with credibility issues, is truly a mixed bag

Rating: 6/10 (15 October 2014)

'The Secret in Their Eyes' won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 2009. Some critics have criticized the film for a lack of verisimilitude, but others, the greater majority, were quite impressed by the way in which the sordid underbelly of Argentina in the 70s is revealed, when it was ruled with an iron hand by the Peronistas and their fascist supporters.
The protagonist here is Benjamín Espósito who pays a visit to Judge Irene Menéndez-Hastings, who was his boss back in the 70s in Buenos Aires. Espósito is now retired but used to work as a Federal Police Officer in the courthouse. He tells Menéndez-Hastings that he plans to write a novel about the rape/murder case he investigated involving the attractive victim, Liliana Coloto, married to an unassuming bank employee, Ricardo Morales. Most of the rest of the film involves flashbacks to the time Espósito investigated the crime.
As we flash back, Campanella puts us right square in the middle of the down and dirty world of these 'federales', who are entrusted with bringing criminals to the bar of justice. Espósito is aided by his good buddy in the office, Pablo Sandoval, a deputy clerk who has a drinking problem. The machinations involving Sandoval add to the film's believability as the 'good guys' are shown not to be 'squeaky clean' or overly heroic. Initially, two construction workers are fingered by one of Espósito's colleague, Romano, as the culprits in the murder of Coloto; but after Espósito interviews them, he concludes that they're wholly innocent and were beaten and framed by Romano. Espósito goes so far as to file a formal complaint against Romano, who is transferred to another city.
The real suspect, Isidoro Gómez, is revealed after Espósito notices pictures in Coloto's old photo album who are given to him by Morales. In these pictures, Gómez is seen staring at Coloto and this is enough for Espósito to conclude that Gómez is his man (merely by the look of his eyes). Many internet posters found Espósito's conclusion not to be believable at all but sometimes old fashioned police work involves mere 'hunches'. Gómez's guilt becomes more apparent when he intentionally disappears after Espósito and Sandoval are hot on his trail.
Espósito (much to the chagrin of boss Menéndez-Hastings) engages in some extra-judicial shenanigans of his own when he breaks into Gómez's mother's home and steals some of his cryptic letters. Again, the good guys are not always so good. Menéndez-Hastings shuts down the case but a year later, Espósito runs into Morales in a train station, who informs him that he goes to various stations and sits there for hours, hoping he'll find his wife's killer. Espósito is so impressed by Morales' determination, that he convinces his boss to re-open the investigation into Coloto's murder.
It's Sandoval who has the brilliant insight that the purloined letters reveal Gómez's passion for soccer (Sandoval's meditation on mens' passion, is a critical component later in the plot). Specifically, Gómez is a fanatical fan of a particular soccer team, the Racing Club, so Espósito and Sandoval have been attending Racing Club's games in the hope of finding him in the crowd. And again, many internet posters found it unbelievable that the intrepid investigators would be able to find such a 'needle in a haystack'. Nonetheless, they do and Gómez now finds himself in their custody.
It's rather neat how Menéndez-Hastings takes over the interrogation of Gómez and pretends that he's not their suspect because he doesn't fit the profile of a 'real man' who could possibly rape and kill the victim. She insults him by claiming that he is not well endowed at all and eventually he loses his cool, takes out his member (as proof that he is well-endowed), calls her a 'bitch', punches her in the face and inadvertently confesses. It's a very 'cinematic' scene but the wily killer (who soon is smart enough to escape the bar of justice) is not a very clever psychopath at this juncture at all!
Perhaps the best twist in the plot is when Gómez is released from prison after his conviction and is seen on TV, behind Eva Perón, as an apparent bodyguard. Now it's Romano's turn to get 'revenge' as he tells Espósito and Menéndez-Hastings to get lost, as the killer has become a trusted lieutenant for the bad guys. It's chilling when Gómez flashes his gun in the elevator in front of Espósito and his naïve boss and even more chilling when Sandoval is mistakenly shot at Espósito's home, in a case of mistaken identity.
The years pass and we're now back in the present. Espósito's ending for his novel isn't satisfying to either one of them (he paints a hackneyed portrait of himself and Menéndez-Hastings—with her having second thoughts about rejecting him, chasing him in the train station, as he leaves Buenos Aires on the train for good, seeking protection from Gómez and his associates).
With the Judge's help, Espósito tracks down Morales (hence now, a better ending!). The climax is designed to shock but is it believable? After Espósito doubles back to Morales' house, he realizes that the story that Morales told (that he killed Gómez), couldn't be true since Morales had made it clear years ago that life imprisonment was far more a vengeful (and satisfactory) punishment than the death penalty, where a killer merely peacefully 'goes to sleep', after receiving a lethal injection. Given the situation he was in, trapped like a rat by Morales, do you really believe that Gómez would not have taken his own life? And furthermore, I wasn't convinced that it was so easy for Morales to abduct Gómez in the first place.
Ultimately, 'The Secret in Their Eyes' kept my interest, although some of it was slow-moving and not always believable. As for an Academy Award—some voters may have gone overboard just a bit.