SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Overrated

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

This was miserably confusing and I did not realize till the end when the male lead went to the house of the victims mother that this was a takeoff of the really very good Argentina film I had seen some years ago.Can't recommend it at all.

Former FBI agent Ray Kastan (Chiwetel Ejiofor) believes he has found a missing killer in a thirteen year old case. The case involved the daughter (Zoe Graham) of his partner Jess (Julia Roberts). Claire, the LA district attorney (Nicole Kidman) was part of the case as was Bumpy (Dean Norris). The man in question has some resemblance, but is not a 100% match suggesting facial surgery.The production flip flops between the present and the past. Our suspect was a key mosque informant for the FBI who were not willing to give up the informant for a simple rape and murder charge. Kidman undergoes make-up changes while Julie Roberts looks devoid of make-up and tired for most of the film. The acting was well done, the plot had a twist, but the drama wasn't as engaging as I would have expected from such a cast. The whole idea of finding this guy was like looking for a needle in a haystack.Guide: 1 F-word. No sex or nudity. Some killing and violence.

This film is far better than than 6.2 rating it has received which seems mostly to come from those wanting to compare it to the Argentinian original. I am rating this as a separate film and not comparing it to the original. The acting is top notch and believable. Ejiofor, Kidman and Roberts all do a great job. It's an interesting crime thriller with some twists and turns. It's about a team of rising investigators, along with their supervisor, whose worlds are suddenly torn apart during a homicide investigation that hits close to home. It was completely watchable and entertaining. I'm not saying this is a high brow, blow your socks of type of movie, but it certainly deserves a far higher rating. I am certainly not saying that the original might not be much better. I have it on my list to watch but in my opinion, if you like thrillers and movies with some twists and turns and want to be entertained I recommend giving it a chance.

A girl is found in a dumpster fully clothed, but the girl has been raped and bleach has been poured on her and inside her to eliminate DNA evidence.Anyone with a background in criminology will tell you that the whole scene would have been highly unlikely. The guy had no real connection to her. The only reason a perp would put clothes back on a female after murdering her - cover up her body - is if they had some kind of connection to her (family, friend, partner). For example, Amber Hagerman, a nine year old taken off her bike in broad daylight was found with one sock on face down in a creek behind her apartment building. Similarly, Kristen French, a 15 year old after being held captive for days was found nude on the side of the road. Her head was even shaved to eliminate any potential evidence of carpet fibres. These victims are discarded like trash. A perp is not going to put clothes back on them, especially since clothes always has some kind of evidence on it (head hair,dog hair, feline hair, clothing/carpet fibre, pubic hair, the kind of forensic material that cannot be bleached away). Many people have been convicted of similar crimes on weak evidence, such as carpet fibres in a car matching fibres found within the inside of a girl's pants, for example, even after being submerged in a lake for some time. This is NOT always the case. Some girls are found partially clothed, but that is only because the unsub was in a hurry and didn't bother to remove all the clothing during the assault. In the case of this movie, the unsub bleached the girl on the inside and out. If he went to all that trouble, he would not risk putting clothes back on the girl, since clothing always carries some carpet, hair, clothing fibres on it. Also, he did a bad a bleaching job, since the clothing was not even bleached. The forensics in the case were pathetic, it looked the case was taking place in some poor country like Columbia, Mexico or the Philippines with no forensic team of specialists. She went into the dumpster and completely contaminated the scene and all the evidence at the scene. Any evidence on the daughter was contaminated at that point with fibres she brought on herself. (That is why investigators wear special clothing prior to going into these types of scenes.)They are detectives in a joint force on terrorism and yet they are asked to investigate a rape and murder of a female. This is also unlikely. There are HOMICIDE INVESTIGATORS for that, not the same thing as homeland security. Whoever wrote this movie really needs to watch some crime dramas and forensic files episodes because even in the 1980s, when DNA had NOT been used in court yet and was at its most early stages of development, there was still a lot of forensic data collected at a scene. The acting was good, but the movie was boring, jumped back and fourth, and was inaccurate/unrealistic.