Review: ‘Secret in Their Eyes’

“Secret in Their Eyes” is the kind of movie that never fully clicks, despite having all the elements needed to be a good, if not great movie. A twisty-turny plot with a great cast all doing solid work, it all works as well as an extended episode of “Law & Order” but also ultimately feels just as disposable, and considering the subject matter, this trait isn’t a good thing.

Constantly jumping back and forth between 2002 and 2015, “Secret in Their Eyes” is the story of the rape and murder of a young woman and how this deviant act of criminality deeply affected a number of people directly related to this case. Counter Terrorism expert and FBI Agent Ray (Chiwetel Ejiofor) ignores the orders of his boss by spending his time investigating this murder instead of doing the counter terrorism work he was there for, and he does so because the victim is the daughter of his FBI Agent partner Jess (Julia Roberts). With a little help and encouragement from the foxy district attorney for whom he has the hots (Nicole Kidman), he does his best to solve the murder in 2002, and again in 2015 when he finds new evidence.

The problem for him in 2015 is that he is no longer with the Feds, as the case drove him away from the badge and into the private sector as a security consultant. In his free time, he kept looking for the killer, and believing that he found him under a new name, tries to get his DA friend as well as Jess to reopen the case and look for this guy again. Being older and not having any legal status makes it difficult for him to investigate the way he used to, but he tries anyway out of a sense of loyalty and resolve that is nothing if not admirable. Meanwhile, he openly pines for the DA, who was engaged when they first met in 2002 and is still married when they reconnect in 2015.

There is a problem with this story and that lies within the structure, which is kind of boring and feels very 1990s. The murder and investigation in 2002 are interspersed with scenes of the case being reopened in 2015, and halfway through the movie I couldn’t help but feel I would have liked the unfolding of these events much better in a linear fashion than this whole “hint at things in 2015 and then show them happen in 2002” fashion. Like we see one of Ray’s old Fed coworkers (Dean Norris) in 2015 and he’s limping and walking with a cane, and then in the 2002 scenes we see him walking around just fine, and we know that he is going to hurt his knee somehow during this investigation, which he does eventually. And we are just sitting there waiting for it to happen. Likewise, we know that Ray is looking for the killer in 2015 because they didn’t arrest him in 2002, and yet half the movie is spent with flashbacks to the investigation and how close they came to getting this guy, yet there is no suspense because we KNOW he’s going to get away, that’s the only way these 2015 scenes even work.

And then about three-quarters of the way through the movie it becomes obvious that the reason this movie has such a structure is because they are hiding information meant to be doled out at the end as big reveals, secrets finally let out of the bag, and yet the problem here is that we can see what these reveals will be right in the moments leading up to them, so the story has more of a sense of inevitability than it does genuine surprise. Which is a shame because all of these actors do awesome work and it would be nice to see them in a film that actually puts all this work to the service of a story better constructed. The subplot about the unrequited love between Ejiofor and Kidman feels a little empty, and though it makes sense thematically, as it speaks to a person living with years of regret and “what if” thoughts, it doesn’t have any real sense of paying off in a meaningful way. It is just there to add just a bit of tension and to emphasize the movie’s theme of regret and that’s it.

Also there is a good bit of this story dedicated to our country’s response to the September 11, 2001 World Trade Center attacks, and how there was a very palpable sense of dread and paranoia throughout the country, to the point where these attacks in New York City prompted people all the way across the country in Los Angeles to fear that not only could something similar happen to them, but that it was inevitable. This paranoia and the government’s dedication to surveillance and counter terrorism leads directly into the plot of the murder and how “small” things like the rape and murder of a single person pale in comparison to the possibility of another 9/11, however, “Secret in Their Eyes” doesn’t really seem to have much to say about this stuff in general. “Welcome to the war” is uttered a couple of times in response to things that seem casualties of the war on terror, but it doesn’t tie into anything else. This movie makes a big deal about counter terrorism but then doesn’t say or do anything about it.

Missed opportunities seems to be the name of the game with “Secret in Their Eyes,” an entertaining enough if also somewhat frustrating procedural that tries to get more personal than your average “Law & Order” episode, but only gets partway there before petering out.