In one film Argentina obsoletes every cliched American revenge movie.

Rating: 7/10 (30 June 2019)

So it's a revenge movie. America seems to make about 400 of these every year. Bad kills/takes good guys' wife/daughter/dog (hello, John Wick), so good guy decides, with good/some/no justification, that calling the police is not an option and the only way to get justice is to abandon the rule of law, get his (it's always his) medieval berserker bloodlust on and go on a homicidal killing spree murdering as many people as possible (apparently the more killed the more true was his love) who are in any way even tangentially linked to the bad guy. About the only way anyone in America ever innovates in this category of movie is the vary the choreography and find novel ways of murdering someone. Oh and there's always the traditional American gun worship, you can't forget the gun worship.
There's a whole argument to be had over whether these films relieve pent up anger at injustice, or just restlessness, and so prevent outbursts of violence, or whether they basically glorify homicidal killing sprees and promote violence and a vengeful approach to conflict. FWIW, I can never get away from a certain amount of feeling dirty having watched one of these things.
Enter Juan Jose Campanella from Argentina with an actually original and innovative revenge flick. He goes the complete opposite direction from Hollywood's ever more divorced from reality comic book killing sprees with a film about a few ordinary police, and a grieving husband, struggling to bring a killer to justice. The background, very sparingly alluded to, is the fascist Peron dictatorship, thousands of political activists and opposition members who became "the disappeared", and generally a time when a great many people in Argentina found justice very hard to come by.
Unlike Hollywood's short attention span, where new revenge films pretty much have to have killed 100 footsoldiers and the head bad guy within 24 hours of the good guys' dog being buried, Campanella's story of revenge spans decades. And not just a then-and-now structure, the original investigation spans years and the present day story spans a good deal of time too. All of this piles on the dramatic tension - "will this monster ever see justice?" - and builds our appreciation of the heroes, they're not just risking being killed, they're risking spending decades of their lives on a futile hunt. And while guns are present, they're about as useful as they are in real life. No one's going around blowing away their problems with merry abandon.
And then there's the finale, which of course I won't spoil. I'll just say it makes every American revenge movie hero look childish and narcissistic. This is a revenge story for grown ups. The hero isn't just throwing a bloody and homicidal tantrum until he makes himself feel better; he's making a steep sacrifice to see justice done and to honour the person he lost.