REVIEW: Secret in Their Eyes

21 11 2015

Remaking a movie from another language requires more than just translating the dialogue. When done right, a complex series of subtle changes must take place to transplant the story across cultures.

“Secret in Their Eyes,” a remake of the 2009 Argentinian film of the same (sans definite article), moves an intriguing thriller from 1970s Buenos Aires to 2000s Los Angeles. Naturally, that country’s “Dirty War” of state terrorism, which provides the setting for the original film, must be changed as America has no such equivalent. The closest equivalent that writer/director Billy Ray finds? Post-9/11 terrorism.

Yawn.

Juan José Campanella’s film dealt with tragedies that his country was still reluctant to acknowledge. Billy Ray milks the nation’s public anguish of this millennia for lazy dramatic stakes. Drawing parallels between the two changes the very nature of the story from a politically-tinged thriller to something that amounts to little more than a feature-length episode of a serialized crime drama.

Not even the talented cast of Chiwetel Ejiofor, Nicole Kidman and Julia Roberts can elevate the material back to the level of its Oscar-winning source. Ray’s script, which cuts between a murder in 2002 and its continuing aftermath in 2015, intertwines its threads to such clunky effect that “Secret in Their Eyes” never has a chance to gain any momentum. He favors big, explosive moments from his actors as opposed to giving them rich, internal characters to work with on the page.

We know from films like “12 Years a Slave” that Ejiofor is capable of communicating so much with just his eyes, yet his tortured protagonist Ray from “Secret in Their Eyes” never gets the chance to draw us into his pain. He’s a counterterrorism agent with a crush on one colleague, Nicole Kidman’s Claire, and a friendly working relationship with another, Julia Roberts’ Jess. When a routine check on a body turns out to be Jess’ daughter, the boundaries between protecting the country and pursuing justice get rather murky.

The occasional ethical question about the merits of retribution gets raised here and there, but it’s usually forgone for yet another opportunity to watch Roberts hysterically contort her face. C+ / 2stars


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REVIEW: Captain Phillips

21 01 2014

From the outset of Paul Greengrass’ “Captain Phillips,” there is a conscious attempt to mirror the film’s two leading men, the titular cargo ship commander played by Tom Hanks and the Somali pirate Muse humanized by Barkhad Abdi.  Where most films would try to draw attention to the gulf between them, Greengrass and screenwriter Billy Ray bring to light the comparisons few would ever make.

Phillips and Muse rally their troops in the same way, command authority similarly, and follow the scripted narratives their societies have written for them.  They’re explicitly paralleled in the structure of the script as well as in Greengrass’ visual language of “Captain Phillips.”  It leads to a provocative line of mental questioning, but the sort of political allegory for which they aim winds up slightly unfulfilled.

It feels like an appropriate cherry on what I view as an unofficial, non-consecutive trilogy for Greengrass.  This series of interrelated movies is composed of 2006’s “United 93,” 2009’s “Green Zone,” and 2013’s “Captain Phillips,” all of which are critiques of contemporary American power and its narrow-minded exercise.  It’s yet another outsider’s critique of the currently reigning global superpower, which you can choose to listen to or dismiss.

The least of the three, “Green Zone” is a rather obvious criticism of the U.S. invasion of Iraq under some rather dubious pretexts.  “United 93” might seem like a straightforward cinematic presentation of an important historical event, but it uses the ill-fated flight on 9/11 for the self-destructive ends of America’s myopic worldview.  In his treatment of that film, Greengrass described the hijacking as a “hermetically sealed world disrupted by a savage and violent act.”  The premise of his “Captain Phillips” sounds like a riff on the same thought, which makes the films interesting companions.

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