Tag Archives: Dodgers

Secret In Their Eyes

 

Here’s a mystery that offers a large number of questions. What exactly happened? Who did it? How good is the evidence? Were Muslims involved? Who was that guy at the office picnic? Is the suspect really that big a Dodgers fan? Did someone spend 13 years looking at photos of inmates? Secret In Their Eyes throws out many questions, a handful of hints, but few solid answers until the final act.

Secret In Their Eyes is notable because it features Julia Roberts as a haggard, world-weary, older woman who dresses in drab attire. Audiences have seen many looks from Julia over the last quarter century, but this may be the least glamorous face she’s shown the world.

Roberts plays Jess, an investigator in the L.A. district attorney’s office. Her daughter is found dead in 2002 in a dumpster next door to a mosque. In the year after 9/11, law enforcers, including the D.A. (Alfred Molina) are obsessed with terror threats.

Her former colleague, Ray (Chiwetel Ejiofor) returns to L.A. in present day with a lead on the murder. He tries to convince the current D.A. Claire (Nicole Kidman) to let him pursue the man he suspects did the deed 13 years earlier. He claims to have pored over online photos of prisoners across America and found the one whose eyes match those of a man in a photo.

As plain jane-ish as Julia appears, Nicole is as gorgeous as she’s ever been, with a top-notch wardrobe. Both women, by the way, are 48 years old.

A problem with the film and its storytelling (Billy Ray is writer and director) is the transitions between 2015 and 2002. They are not always clearly demarcated. The film is adapted from a 2009 Argentinian film El Secreto De Sus Ojos, which is ranked #134 on IMDB’s list of the all-time Top 250 films.

Secret In Their Eyes has a simmering unrequited romance between Ray and Clare. He has the hots for her but she keeps him away, mentioning her fiancé back east.

A scene I loved was a drone flyover shot of Dodger Stadium showing purported game action, just before a scene where Ray and fellow investigator Bumpy (Dean Norris) pursue the alleged perp.

Despite flaws in pacing, choppy delivery of the narrative and a few misdirections, Secret In Their Eyes is a decent, if not great, well-acted crime mystery.

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42

Like most recent crowd-pleasing biopics, 42 presents a series of opportunities, challenges and successes for its hero. As we saw in films about Ray Charles and Johnny Cash, and now here for Jackie Robinson, talent and determination win the day.

Jackie Robinson is played ably by Chadwick Boseman. The movie’s depiction of Robinson reveals few flaws, other than a temper. No addictions, no womanizing here. He has a wife, but few other characteristics that flesh him out as a real person, not just a ballplayer.

The story of Jackie Robinson is also the story of Branch Rickey, the white man credited with bringing Robinson to the bigs. Harrison Ford plays Rickey with restraint. Not many of those intense tirades we’ve seen in other Ford roles, but a couple of good speeches give Ford his moments to shine.

After Rickey determines that Robinson has the guts and the self-control to handle the abuse, Rickey deals with managers and players who aren’t happy that Robinson is part of their team.

Acceptance is slow in coming, but winning ballgames helps heal some of the hard feelings. Robinson leads the Dodgers to the 1947 pennant, is named Rookie of the Year and the audience leaves the theater with a warm, Hallmark Channel-like upbeat feeling.

Following Django Unchained, hearing the “n” word in a mass market film like 42 is not so shocking. I heard the word four times through the first half of the movie. But after Robinson joins the Dodgers, he hears the word many more times—mostly from Phillies manager Ben Chapman. Chapman is played by Alan Tudyk, who was Steve the Pirate in Dodgeball.

42 attempts to capture the feeling of 1946 and ’47. On some levels, that goal is achieved with the typical tools: cars, phones and costumes of the era. What the film fails to communicate is how big baseball was in those days, as compared to other amusements. The depictions of real ballparks of the era are partly successful. The film has a major anachronism with a shot of modern seating in a minor league ballpark.

42 is not a great movie, but tells its story in an entertaining enough way to click with many groups of moviegoers: men and women, white and black, baseball fans and non-fans. Like Ray and Walk the Line, 42 is destined to be a crowd-pleaser.

 

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