The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

A retired Argentinian federal agent is trying to write a book about a past case of his and in doing so hoping to finally come to terms with it. The case concerns a murdered young woman and all the legal hoops they had to jump through in pursuing a conviction and all the corruption that stood in their way.Ricardo Darín plays the lead role here. He was also my favourite in another Argentinian film, Wild Tales, which I really enjoyed, and he's also my favourite in this film. Something about his whole being is just perfect to convey the frustration and sadness his character has to go through in fighting the windmills that are the Argentinian government and its legal system.As for the story, it was competent and very much enjoyable, but I also felt that it lacked that certain something. The end twist I could see coming miles away and the rest of the events, while competently filmed and certainly professionally made all around, were not what I'd call original.Not to say that originality is the end and all of film making - although it usually doesn't hurt. You can tell a classic tale and your film will be a classic as well, if you just tell it well enough. But here I didn't find that personal touch that I'm looking for.Still, the film is very good. If you're looking for a crime film with a film-noir feel and twist, you should definitely keep this one in mind.

The story of this movie is exciting. There are many details that only those who are very attentive sometimes understand. There is talk of the dictatorship in Argentina of that time and how the corruption already affected the police. Teaches values of justice and morals. I found it very meaningful that the investigator tried to relive his past by regretting the decisions made.

This is only the second Argentinian movie I've seen, both within the past week (the other was "Wild Tales"), and so far I'm batting a thousand by picking two immensely satisfying films. I was reading some of the negative reviews and I had to laugh, more than one stated that the ending was completely predictable. Yeah right, like anyone could foresee that Morales would kidnap the guy who murdered his wife and keep him a prisoner for twenty five years. Come on, nobody could see that coming.At least not ahead of time. After the fact, when you start putting two and two together, along with the picture's title, one is able to come to grips with the idea that Morales wouldn't let things go the way the corrupt district Judge Romano (Mariano Argento) did, and would relentlessly pursue his side of the case, in the same manner legal counselor Benjamin Esposito (Ricardo Darin) did on his. So much of the story depended on the concept that 'The eyes speak', and in more ways than one. It's what trapped the killer and what gave away the feelings between Esposito and his supervisor Irene Hastings (Soledad Villamil), even though that relationship went unrequited for more than two decades.The scene that really floored me was when Irene and Esposito began interrogating Isidoro Gomez (Javier Godino). I'm not entirely convinced that what Ms. Hastings did was ethical or not, but the way she demeaned Gomez to make him crack was truly inspired. The man would have to have been deranged to expose himself like that in a law office, so you had a pretty good idea right there that the guy wasn't playing with a full deck. The fact that he was released upon executive order is one of those things that makes one see red in any kind of movie, and inspires that much more contempt of the justice system.All the while of course, one wonders why Esposito could never reveal his true feelings and intentions with Ms. Hastings. He came close a couple of times, and it looked like she was willing to reciprocate, but those frustrating moments dissolved into just another distraction. I was ready to give it up for lost until the very last scene when Irene told Benjamin that 'it would be difficult'. It leaves the viewer a bit conflicted because the woman had a husband and family that she was going to compromise, something that she and Esposito had done for the last twenty five years.

Although there are some forced situations, it is a great movie. Yet, what I find disturbing about this film is the fact that the murdered woman (Liliana Colotto) let her murderer (Gómez) in and her husband (Morales) did not know it. Was she cheating on him? It's perfectly possible that a woman lets an old acquaintance in without her husband being aware of it, but to me, it's more likely that she was being unfaithful.