Trailer for Enigmatic Eyes
Captain Phillips screenwriter Billy <b>Ray's latest</b> film, Enigmatic Eyes, brings together two big names, including Julia Roberts ("Uncompromising") and Nicole Kidman ("All the Time"), and a nominated film emperor, Chevat Edgarfort ("Twelve Years of Slavery"). In addition to the success of its adaptation, the most concerned question is how several people perform.
Overall, it's a gripping film, with the actors acting superbly to tell the story, but nothing surprising. The film is a remake of the Argentine film of the same name, "Enigmatic Eyes", although the plot has changed, but still retains the essence. The changed part is a secondary plot, originally saying that the protagonist wrote a novel with an old case from decades ago, and the background of this film is that the protagonist is tortured by the past inability to help his friends, and insists on catching the murderer.
Similar to the original Argentine version, the new version switches between two different timelines. Now in the timeline, former FBI agent Ray (Chevat EdgarFort) is a security consultant for a company in New York. He flies to Los Angeles to meet with former colleague Claire (Nicole Kidman). He tells her that after 13 years of searching, he has finally locked in the suspect who killed caroline, the daughter of his former partner Jessie (Julia Roberts). The film then switches to 13 years ago, showing the audience the discovery and investigation of the murder of Jessie's daughter. Ray finds a photo of an FBI picnic in which an unidentified boy stares at Caroline, and Ray believes that the young man named Marzin (Joe Cole) is the killer. Still, Marzin was an informant of FBI agent Siefert who helped investigate a mosque after 9/11, so district attorney Martin Morales was reluctant to arrest him unless they had substantial evidence.
In this timeline in the past, Ray first met Claire when she arrived in Los Angeles as a new assistant to the district attorney, and she had an affair with Ray during her marriage. Ray, Claire, Jessie, and FBI agent Bumpiy (Dean Norris, Breaking Bad) find and arrest Marzin. Claire used tactics to get Marzin to confess, but was still acquitted because he was an informant for the FBI to fight terrorists. He was released and remained silent until Ray found him 13 years later. Back in the present, Jessie still works at the FBI but lives a quiet life outside the city, where her daughter has been recuperating since she was killed. Ray blamed Caroline's death, which had haunted him for so many years. Ray soon resumes a relationship with Claire, who is still married. Eventually Ray finds Marzin, but is he still not the same person who killed Caroline 13 years ago? What would ray and jessie do if they did find him? These are the questions that will be answered in the last part of the film.
There are a few differences between the Argentine original film and this remake that are worth mentioning.
1. In the original film, the protagonist is a former law enforcement officer who is obsessed with a case he could not solve 25 years ago, and he returns because he wrote a book about the murder. This passage of the novel in the new film is removed, changing Ray's motivation from fame to justice.
2. The film also shortens the time between the past and the present, making the event more urgent in both timelines.
3. In the original film, Jessie's character is actually a man, the widower of the victim, and a friend of the agent. After adapting the script, the victim and Ray are closer, which is a wonderful adaptation. Let the victim become the daughter of the FBI partner of the protagonist, let Ray blame herself for her death, give these characters a more three-dimensional show, and the audience will be more touched.
4. Another addition is the element of "war on terror" in the film, which brings flashbacks back to the months after 9/11. This is sensible, because it is a bit far-fetched for Morales, played by Molina, to bury the case for homeland security reasons, rather than ignoring the case in the original film because of the suspicion of procedural troubles.
Director Billy Ray is a good filmmaker of this genre, having written "Air Crisis" and "National High", and also wrote and directed the underrated "Violation". Ray's adaptation captures the essence of the original work and at the same time suits American tastes. In addition to the three main actors, several supporting roles are also very good, adding a lot of color to the whole film. Julia Roberts' performance this time is remarkable, interpreting the emotions of sadness and confusion very well, while never revealing her true intentions.
The film brings together three powerful actors
The film is shot through Ray's point of view, so Edgar Ford's performance is at the heart of the whole film. The actor's own performance tension is perfectly integrated into the character's persistence, and the backstory is very good to fill the gap in motivation. Even with the former as a reference, the audience has been mentally prepared, but the final ending of the movie is still very exciting.
Although the film's three actors are all Oscar winners or nominees, and the original film also won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, the film seems to have little hope of winning the award. <b>Compared with the original, this Hollywood remake is more like a standard thriller suspense film, and there is not much emotional ink, so it is basically difficult to win an Oscar. </b>Still, it wouldn't be surprising if Julia Roberts could get a nomination. Roberts is the type that closely resembles Meryl Streep, especially in the minds of the Oscar judges, who would be nominated even if they read the dictionary aloud if they were "little years."
Other media reviews are also praised and bombed:
■ This is a long-standing Hollywood tradition of choosing a critically acclaimed foreign film to extinguish the fresh, unique quality remake of the original. While American audiences don't need to read subtitles anymore, this Americanized version erases the most important elements, including logic, subtext, and associated culture, which are what makes the film so good in the first place. ——Rogerebert.com
Writer-director Ray brought together Chevat Edgar Ford, Nicole Kidman, and Julia Roberts to remake the Argentine film for the 2010 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, setting it after 9/11 — very smoothly, but the film itself was fragmented. The film contains a large number of interesting ideas and scenes, but it does not make the film a complete film. ——《The Wrap》
An Oscar-winning best foreign language film adapted from Hollywood, although clever, but nothing special, is a story about murder, corruption, and paranoia that switches between past and present periods. The film cleverly sets the time in the context of post-911 counter-terrorism, replacing the political changes in Argentina at the end of the 70s, such a "facelift" is still unsatisfactory. She is very clever in reinventing Roberts as the protagonist, and her performance is just right, just to refute the fixed thinking that everyone has always thought of her, to prove to the world that she is more than just an American sweetheart. - "Variety"
José Campanella's masterpiece was cleverly adapted by Hollywood, and screenwriter and director Billy Ray removed the literary romanticism of the original and adapted it into a sharp thriller. - The Hollywood Reporter