HBO Game of Thrones: Season 6 Trailer(2)

If you remember the last trailer HBO provided for Season 6 Game of Thrones made it appear as if Davos and perhaps Melisandre were about to make a grim last stand against the Night's Watch. Well as this expanded version of the previously released trailer shows that was only half-true. I don't know if Melisandre is in the room or not. But Davos and the handful of Night's Watch members who didn't stab Lord Commander Jon Snow are indeed about to make a grim last stand against Alliser Throne, Olly and the other Night's Watch members who shanked Jon. Davos has Jon's Valyrian sword, Longclaw. Also Ghost is there and appears to be ready to put in work. This is interesting stuff not least because this event is something which has not happened yet in the books. This season there may only be a few things that book readers know and show watchers don't. With only a few major storylines that have yet to be adapted and even fewer important characters unrevealed this season will have everyone on equal footing more or less. Davos, like Ned Stark is a fundamentally decent man, so I'm looking forward to seeing the fallout from his realization that he served a man (Stannis) that was willing to murder his own daughter. Given Davos' reluctance to leave and his gift to Shireen I think deep down inside he knew Stannis' intention. Anyway what's done is done. Perhaps Bran Stark isn't the only Stark who can warg. Does Jon Snow's spirit live on in the appropriately named Ghost? We'll see I guess. Check out the video clip below (start at 1:47 if you want to skip the show banter)

South Carolina Cops Strip Search and Sexually Assault Black Couple

Usually I defer, however reluctantly or conditionally, to the received wisdom that the best way to proceed with police officers who are behaving unlawfully or unfairly towards you or yours is to comply with directions, keep your mouth shut and live to fight another day. They have weapons and you likely don't. Your goal should be to stay alive. But as the saying goes, a nation of sheep begets a government of wolves. So there must be limits to the tolerance we grant police. Police are not gods. They are not above the law. They only deserve deference or respect to the extent that they follow the law. When police obliterate the line between criminal and cop, they're just another thug. If someone who wasn't a police officer came up to you and demanded that you remove your clothing and underwear so that they could stick something inside of you or ordered you to strip in front of their leering sarcastic friends, I'm betting that you would reject that order. You would likely immediately remove yourself from the location, were you able to do so. And if push came to shove you would defend yourself from this pervert's demented desires. You have a right to defend yourself from illegal behavior. You have a right to self-defense. The only reason that we don't normally behave that way with police is because we have agreed to give some extreme powers to police in order to detect and apprehend criminals while keeping the rest of society safe. But when police become evil for lack of a better word that consent can and should be revoked. A horrifying example of how evil some police officers can be recently came to light in Aiken, South Carolina.  A white police officer unlawfully stopped a car driven by a black woman with a black man passenger. He and his cohorts then proceeded to unlawfully search the car and to strip search the man and woman, including the man's rectum. Most of this was on video. 
Lakeya Hicks and Elijah Pontoon were in Hicks’s car just a couple of blocks from downtown Aiken when they were pulled over by Officer Chris Medlin of the Aiken Department of Public Safety. Hicks was driving. She had recently purchased the car, so it still had temporary tags.
In the video, Medlin asks Hicks to get out, then tells her that he stopped her because of the “paper tag” on her car. This already is a problem. There’s no law against temporary tags in South Carolina, so long as they haven’t expired.
Medlin then asks Pontoon for identification. Since he was in the passenger seat, Pontoon wouldn’t have been required to provide ID even if the stop had been legitimate. Still, he provides his driver’s license to Medlin. A couple of minutes later, Medlin tells Hicks that her license and tags check out. (You can see the time stamp in the lower left corner of the video.) This should be the end of the stop — which, again, should never have happened in the first place.
Instead, Medlin orders Pontoon out of the vehicle and handcuffs him. He also orders Hicks out of the car. Pontoon then asks Medlin what’s happening. Medlin ignores him. Pontoon asks again. Medlin responds that he’ll “explain it all in a minute.” Several minutes later, a female officers appears. Medlin then tells Pontoon, “Because of your history, I’ve got a dog coming in here. Gonna walk a dog around the car.” About 30 seconds later, he adds, “You gonna pay for this one, boy.”

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This abuse won't change until someone (i.e. a bullying cop) gets put six feet under. I just don't see other ways. Marching and protesting and boycotting and avoidance and pleading and appealing to morality haven't worked. Cops who use their badge to insult, intimidate, harass and in this case sexually assault people just aren't bothered by the threat of legal consequences because everyone knows such consequences are very rare. Federal prosecutors just don't bring charges against local law enforcement personnel. In most cases like this there won't be a state criminal trial either. And if there is, usually prosecutors and judges do their absolute bare minimum. Juries are often reluctant to convict. This is especially the case since the system will do everything in its power to prevent people like Hicks or Pontoon from sitting on juries. Even when a police officer is charged and a diverse jury could be selected the cop can always just opt for a judge to decide the case. Many judges are former prosecutors. So legal penalties don't deter these cops. There's only a slim chance that they will lose their job. Apparently the endless diversity classes, Officer Friendly school visits and internal legal training haven't made a dent in the behavior depicted. From what I can tell, as far as the average police officer is concerned, the law on the street is whatever he or she says it is. Other people more qualified than I can argue all the legal whys and wherefores but according to the legal experts quoted in the Post story, everything that happened was illegal. The police had no reason other than bias and personal dislike (and sexual sadism?) to pull over the black couple. This policing is descended directly from slave patrols of antebellum America. Poor whites, who often didn't own kidnapped Africans, were able to vent their class and racial hatred and jealousy on slaves travelling between plantations or free blacks travelling to their home or business. It's also part of the War on Drugs and the resulting normalization of prison procedures (extreme immediate compliance, strip searches, aggressive interrogations) that have spread throughout society.

This sort of government overreach should be something that conservatives and liberals agree needs to be stopped. Unfortunately, with a few noted and honorable exceptions, the sort of conservatives who love to wave their Gasden flag, cite Thomas Jefferson quotes about the tree of liberty requiring blood, and yell about oppressive big government, don't seem to get that infuriated about examples of oppressive government physically violating citizens like Hicks and Pontoon. I wonder why that might be. This is the duality of America. A black man can be elected President twice. And yet a black man and woman can be treated by their own government as if it's 1816 and not 2016. How do we resolve that? I really don't know. Violence is a bad thing. I try to avoid it. But I can't let another man violate me or mine in such a manner. Somebody would have to go.

Movie Reviews: Macbeth

Macbeth
directed by Justin Kurzel

If you've not previously read or seen an adaptation or performance of this Shakespeare play I'd like to (1) know how in the world that is even possible in this day and age and (2) strongly urge you to see this adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy. And even if you have already read the play, seen it performed or viewed other film versions I'd urge you to see this film. It stands on its own. It simultaneously remains very faithful to the script while pointing out the modern and yet timeless urges that define Macbeth. Before Michael Corleone moaned in Godfather 3 that every time he thought he was out they pulled him back in, Shakespeare wrote in Macbeth that "What's done can not be undone." Macbeth influenced important themes of Tolkien's Lord of The Rings. Tolkien specifically reworked Shakespeare's prophecies of an evil tyrant being unable to be defeated by man born of woman or until the woods marched to a castle to what he thought of as much more satisfying and honest ends. Without Macduff revealing his unusual birth circumstances to Macbeth there is no Eowyn laughing and telling the Witch-King "But no living man am I!!" And like Tolkien's Witch-King, Shakespeare's gloomy Macbeth is someone who has thrown away his humanity forever. He's a blasted man whose soul is already in hell even though he still walks this plane of existence. And by the end, he knows it.  Terry Pratchett used interpretations of the three witches from Macbeth in many of his works, most notably Wyrd Sisters. And even if you aren't overly familiar with Macbeth you have almost certainly heard of quotes from Macbeth including such phrases as "By the pricking of my thumbs something wicked this way comes" or "Fair is foul and foul is fair" or "For mine own good all causes shall give way" or my favorite:

“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time; and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

Talk about a cynical or blues interpretation of life's ups and downs! Of  course I am somewhat biased because Macbeth along with Richard III was my absolute favorite play to read/perform during my high school English class all those years ago. I'm always open to seeing a new interpretation of Macbeth.

Macbeth is a solemn examination of the cost of ambition, greed and evil. Once you get your hands dirty, you can't get them clean again no matter what you do. Although this version mostly sticks to Shakespeare's glorious and yet stilted dialogue it sheds the static nature of the stage by using the full range of film techniques to bring this story to life. You won't think that you're watching a play being adapted. Everything feels very lifelike with the exception of some twisted surreal scenes that give you a hint into Macbeth's state of mind. The music director and director's brother Jed Kurzel did a good job with a string driven traditional but at the same time modern score. I do believe I also heard some synthesizers and theremins perhaps? Or maybe it was just judicious use of reverb and amplification. I can't say for sure. But I know I liked it. The music is evocative both of the Scottish time period in which the story is set and of the emotions and events which haunt and define several of the chief characters. But film is primarily a visual experience is it not? Kurzel doesn't disappoint on that score. Sticking with the blue-gray motif which has come to define many historical or fantasy movies, Kurzel brings the viewer into the seemingly unearthly beauty of the Scottish countryside where the film was primarily shot. He also shows us both the darkness of the human heart and the literal darkness of the halls, tents and battlefields where most of the film's activity takes place. Some events which take place off screen in the play are shown here to devastating emotional impact. Macbeth's rivals consistently underestimate the savagery that he's capable of unleashing. By the time they realize what a truly horrible man Macbeth has become it's far too late.

Michael Fassbender inhabits the titular role. He's an ambitious Scottish nobleman with an equally purposeful wife (Marion Cotillard) who decides to forcibly retire his King (David Thewlis) after receiving word from three witches that he is destined to become King of Scotland. Anytime he doubts or hesitates his wife is there to put steel in his spine. But blood leads to blood and then some more again. In short time Macbeth and his wife learn that power comes at a very great cost. But this isn't just a simple morality play, though you can certainly understand it at that level. This movie raises the question of whether the witches are real or not. Macbeth is a war veteran who has seen and done horrible things even before he takes it into his mind to murder his king. And his wife is haunted by the death of their child. So both the lord and the lady are at very dark places in their lives. When life becomes cheap is it any surprise that someone who's well versed in violence can then justify using violence to unlawful ends? That's the modern layer over the story. My only quibble with the film was that the music, while enjoyable, was occasionally mixed loudly enough to interfere with the dialogue, which is often hushed and muttered. So you might find it worthwhile to have subtitles on for a few scenes here or there. So again, if you're unfamiliar with this play, see this movie. It should all be new and wondrous to you. The lavish detailed costumes, gothic settings, and of course the gorgeous Scottish location add to the viewer's enjoyment. Fassbender and Cottilard bring the intensity in this film.

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D'Angelo Russell and Breaking the Code

For many reasons people often share private, personal and intimate information with those they consider within their circle of trust. I have done so. You have as well. Everybody has. It's part of being human. For most of us the group of people that we trust includes closely related family, past, current or would be intimate partners, clergy and really good friends. For some of us the group of people whom we trust without reservation even includes co-workers. I have never seen co-workers in that fashion but there are some jobs where it's critical to know your co-workers in ways that would be uncomfortably intimate for most of us.These types of jobs usually involve the requirement of spending much more than a 9-5 shift with your co-workers. And sometimes, no matter what kind of job you have or what sort of trust level you have with the people around you, you just need to vent or share information that probably shouldn't be shared. Whatever the case may be when you are giving personal information to someone you usually don't expect that news to go beyond the two of you, let alone be broadcast to the world. Basketball player D'Angelo Russell, LA Lakers guard, apparently didn't understand this. Russell had a conversation with teammate Nick Young. Young talked about his sexual exploits with women, some of which may have occurred while he was engaged to his fiancee, Australian rapper Iggy Azalea. The problem was that Russell recorded this conversation, evidently without Young's knowledge. The worse problem is that Russell or someone close to him provided this conversation to the entire planet. This action obviously embarrassed and humiliated Young and Azalea. It also revealed Russell as an immature and decidedly untrustworthy individual. Russell's Lakers teammates have responded to his breach of decorum by freezing him out of their social networks. At the time that this post was written they're still refusing to talk to Russell, acknowledge or sit next to him during travel or lunch. And some football players responding to Russell's actions have broadly hinted that in the aggressive and dangerous world of the decidedly macho NFL, Russell might have worse and more pressing problems than someone not wanting to be his friend.    

Now I suppose a person of a more moralistic bent might point out that if Young didn't cheat or boast about things best left unspoken then he wouldn't have to worry about public exposure and any hypothetical resulting damage to his relationship with Azalea. And that's true as far as it goes. The greater sin is Russell's violation of trust with his teammate. I think that the parameters and boundaries of Young's and Azalea's relationship are things they need to discuss with each other, not with Russell or the world. If I were to become aware of a co-worker's infidelity or negative feelings towards his or her spouse I would not think I was required to give that knowledge to the spouse or make it public news. After all the spouse by definition knows the co-worker much better than I do. He or she may already know all about whatever ugly dirt I'm dragging into the spotlight. The spouse may not appreciate my actions. And in a case where two young attractive millionaires who work in the sports and entertainment business travel the world it would almost be more newsworthy if neither one of them was ever unfaithful. So I think I'd just keep quiet. The only way I could ever see pulling someone's coat about their spouse's unfaithfulness is if I am directly related to the party that's being cheated on or otherwise had some strong pre-existing relationship with him or her. And even then I'd have to think twice about it. And then I'd have to think some more. I have enough of my own issues to solve. Getting into someone else's personal business is dangerous stuff. And sharing it with the world is damn near unforgivable. This is like going to confession and learning the next day that the priest posted details of all of your sins on the Vatican website. It's just not what you expected when you spoke to him. Few people stay angry forever. It's not healthy. There are only a small number of people on the planet with the sort of talent possessed by D'Angelo Russell. So I think that eventually the NBA fraternity of players and coaches will if not quite forgive Russell, come to some sort of understanding with him. But Russell will always have that "snitch" label attached to him. For now he might consider a stint in the Witness Protection Program until the heat dies down.

Would you ever reveal someone's bad behavior told to you in confidence?

Book Reviews: Known to Evil

Known to Evil

by Walter Mosley

This is book two in Mosley's Leonid McGill series. You can read a review of book one here. Or if you don't care to read an entire other review there are some very basic points which you should understand before reading this book. Mosley thoughtfully weaves them in and out of the story although he doesn't do anything as obvious as an information dump. Leonid McGill is a middle aged New York private eye who's trying to turn over a new leaf morally speaking. He's spent a great deal of his life running in some very dangerous circles and doing business with or favors for evil and dangerous men in both the NYC underworld and upperworld. A few years back McGill underwent a moral epiphany. He decided to only do legitimate private eye work. No more setting up innocent people in insurance scams. No more tracking down witnesses for the Mob. No more fixing juries or paying people to perjure themselves in court. And McGill promised himself to try really hard not to kill anyone if he could avoid it. McGill decided to try to make amends where possible to some of the people he hurt. He also chose, as penance for his misdeeds, to stay with his beautiful wife Katrina, who has given him three children, only one of which is his. Katrina is as faithless as she is striking. She's always searching for something bigger and better. The only reason Katrina may be staying with Leonid is that the years are starting to catch up with her, though she remains stunning for her age. Most of the more successful men Katrina might prefer want younger women. That's what Leonid thinks anyway when he imagines Katrina's motivations, which isn't often. He may still be married to her but it's a loveless marriage as far as Leonid is concerned. Leonid's mind is often elsewhere. It's not as if he were 100% true either. In this book Leonid continues to attempt to make amends but learns that you can't just wash your hands once they've been dirty. He's hired by arguably the most powerful man in New York City, the political fixer Alphonse Rinaldo, to find a young woman named Tara. It's supposedly an easy job with no nasty work required. And even a man as stubborn and as independent as Leonid doesn't like to say no to a man like Alphonse Rinaldo. Even more so than Leonid, Alphonse literally knows where all the bodies are buried. Alphonse has access to power which could greatly help or harm Leonid.

It would be a good and healthy thing for Leonid to do this job for Alphonse and have a favor he can redeem at a later time. Alphonse Rinaldo doesn't like hearing the word "no". So Leonid agrees to find the woman. But what should be an easy job turns out to be more complex. Tracking down the young woman, Leonid stumbles into a double murder investigation. It looks like Tara's female friend and a low level hitman have killed each other. And the police are interested in knowing what business Leonid had with the murder victims and Tara. The police brass want to take Leonid down by any means necessary. The top cops view Leonid as the White Whale who got away. If that's not enough to keep Leonid busy for some strange reason his wife of all people is making goo-goo eyes at him again. Leonid finds this more distracting than erotic. This could be because Leonid's true love Aura is stepping out on him with an arrogant lawyer who's trying to get Leonid evicted from his office building. And Leonid's sons, Dmitri and Twill, are in over their heads with various Eastern European gangsters and femme fatale hookers. There's also a subplot about how Leonid tries and mostly fails to help the hapless victim of one of his earlier schemes, a sad pathetic man who's only become more so after his stint in prison. Leonid's deceased father's voice provides Leonid a moral North but even that is warped as Leonid hates his father for having abandoned the family when Leonid was a child. I liked this book a lot. One of the major themes within and one which presumably animates the entire series is change. Can someone who was by any reasonable moral standard, evil, change himself? And what if by doing so he puts his family at risk? Is that worth it? Does someone who was evil have the right to stop doing bad without paying the cost for his misdeeds? Is saying I'm not like that anymore enough for your victims or do you owe them more? 

Not only is McGill an everyman character, he is as the author has confirmed, something of a stand-in for America itself. What does evil mean? Leonid will protect his wife and children but he really only likes one child, ironically the son who isn't his. He provides for his family but can fairly be described as emotionally distant to them. It's something of a shock to Leonid when he realizes that Aura's infidelity can drive him to insensate murderous rage, a trait the cool-headed boxer Leonid has always viewed as a weakness.  Leonid is not exactly an arrogant man but he is someone who has little fear of anyone on God's green earth, with the exception of his "friend" Hush, a notorious killer-for-hire who may be just as much serial killer as hitman. Many very tough people consistently underestimate the short and seemingly pudgy Leonid. It's not usually a mistake they make twice. You should read this book.

There's No Crying at Work!!!!

There is a common blues couplet that reads "Crying won't help you/Praying won't do you no good". I tend to agree with the spirit of those lyrics. Leaving aside the very serious events in war there are only a few situations when I would grudgingly concede that it is theoretically appropriate or excusable for a grown man to cry. These times are few and far between but would probably include such traumatic occurrences as the death of a parent, wife, sibling or child, the joyous occasions of a child's birth or daughter's wedding, and possibly such horrific fictional events as the shooting and eventual death of Sounder, Cochise's death or the Red Wedding. Snicker. These are my rules anyway. I'm not saying they should be yours. Humor aside, I am saying that for better or worse a man who runs around crying at every little thing will inevitably discover that he will lose respect from both men and women. A fellow who lets other men, women or life's ups and downs regularly reduce him to blubbering helplessness shouldn't be allowed to call himself a man in my view. There are very few problems that are solved by crying. And no matter what fresh hell we may find ourselves in at any given time it's a certainty that the world is going to keep turning. The Sun rose yesterday despite all the horrible atrocities that occurred to people who aren't you. And the Sun will rise tomorrow if you get some terrible news today. That's just the way the world works. As both of my grandfathers were prone to saying (fortunately jokingly by the time I arrived on the scene), "Hush up that crying before I give you something to cry about!" I view most crying by men, outside of the previously listed exceptions, as an announcement of utter incompetence, childishness and weakness. Life does not reward such behavior in general. As the Godfather informed us it's important to act like a man!! So whatever problems you face in your life remember that other people have faced them and survived. Or to quote an influential local DJ of my teen years , "Whenever you feel like you're nearing the end of your rope, don't slide off. Tie a knot. Keep hanging, keep remembering, that it ain't nobody bad like you." 

So it was with initial bemusement and later something close to growing horror that I read a piece in The Atlantic which argued that men and especially women should feel entitled to cry at work if they needed to do so. In fact women should have permission to cry more than men because equality and grrlpower or something. And looking negatively at people who cry at work is sexist.That was Olga Khazan's argument anyhow.

When the president of CBS News fired correspondent Mika Brzezinski a decade ago, she cried. And she regrets it. “There was no place for those tears in that moment,” she told the Huffington Post two years ago. “If anything, when you cry, you give away power.”
Of the 15 other high-profile women the news site interviewed about crying at work, the majority expressed negative views of some sort. Frances Hesselbein, former CEO of the Girl Scouts, put it most bluntly: “Tears belong within the family.”
In the office, crying is simply another unexpected emotional cue, like a guffaw or a jump for joy. But unlike those, it’s negative, so it snaps people to attention.
The ignominy of the office cry is still more of an issue for women than for men, because women cry more than men do. In her survey of 700 people, Anne Kreamer, author of It’s Always Personal: Navigating Emotion in the New Workplace, found that in the past year, 41 percent of women admitted to crying at work, but only 9 percent of men did.

Part of the explanation is hormonal: Men generate more testosterone, which inhibits crying, while women produce more prolactin, which seems to promote it. Anatomy also plays a role. Men have larger tear ducts than women, so more of their tears can well in their eyes without spilling out onto their cheeks. The only solution, it appears, is to normalize office crying for everyone. Not unlike other unpleasant things, crying happens. Men shouldn’t reap the unfair advantage of a mid-meeting misting, and women shouldn’t worry that on top of their own embarrassment, they’re being judged as manipulative and incompetent...

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Now to be fair the social expectations are just a wee bit different for women. Outside of the workplace I don't view the spectacle of grown women crying with the same disdain I would have for grown men. Is that (horror of horrors) sexist? Perhaps so. I think most honest people will admit that, politics aside, they have slightly different expectations for men and women. It's just how the world works. Men and women are different. And that's a good thing. Still, man or woman, the workplace is not the place to have teary breakdowns. For men, in most work arenas I've been in, the loss of respect will be almost instantaneous and very difficult to retrieve. I don't think women face that exact same issue. A woman would often receive more confused sympathy than contempt. But even so, a grown woman who cries a lot at her workplace will have people wondering about her competence and stability. Ironically, one of the nastiest, meanest, most aggressive and most profane female co-workers I ever worked with was also a huge crybaby. I thought her tears were just another tool in her kit of emotional manipulation though she claimed not to be able to control them. So my thought is that encouraging people to cry at work is a horrible idea. It takes no account of how the world is today. We can argue and debate about how much of the difference in the frequency in men and women crying is due to biology or environmental factors. But regardless of whether you have XX or XY chromosomes, if you are routinely boo-hoo-hooing at work for reasons that don't include a loved one's death trust and believe that in many workplaces you will find yourself slowly marginalized and kept away from challenging or highly visible assignments and promotions.You need to put on your big boy/big girl pullups. Keep punching away at whatever problem afflicts you. If you really feel that you just need to have a good cry then I would strongly urge you to find yourself a private office or a bathroom stall and do what you need to do there. You won't share private moments with co-workers. You won't run the risk of having a crying jag in front of someone who may not know you that well and probably doesn't want to know you that well. Crying in front of a good friend, supportive and empathetic lover or spouse is utterly different from doing so in front of someone who evaluates your work, a rival peer who may crave your job, or an ambitious underling who resents reporting to you. 

I mean if I had a boss who broke down sobbing because another boss said something mean to him on the Tuesday conference call going forward am I really going to trust Fearless Leader's judgment and mental balance? No. No I am not. Although it is impossible to completely separate work from your emotions the bottom line is that you are at work in order to make money. All the emotional stuff needs to take a back seat while you're at work. Don't try to pretend it's not there. But don't start having crying fits at work either. I'm not interested in comforting you if you are a man; trying to comfort you if you are a woman could be misinterpreted by HR. Please keep your crying to yourself.

But that's just my take. What's your view?

Movie Reviews: Secret in Their Eyes

Secret in Their Eyes
directed by Billy Ray

This film with an A-list cast was based on a Argentine novel which was previously made into an Oscar winning Argentine film. Unfortunately I suspect that a little was lost in translation. Every actor and actress in this version does a good job but they never quite make you completely forget that it's a movie. As thrillers go this film might also have been hamstrung by its PG-13 rating. There are a few subject matters and themes that actually are better served by an R rating. This film needed to be able to stretch out a little more than it did. So if you're someone who likes thrillers but doesn't care for unending stylized grotesque depictions of violence, don't worry. This film doesn't have them. I liked the film marginally more than I disliked it but again this isn't a film which will leave a mark on you or leave you wanting more. It definitely has its exciting moments. There are the requisite set piece scary moments. But despite the film's seeming focus on externalized evil it's really about the impact that evil has on its victims and survivors. I had no problem with that decision. I just thought the film could have done a better job of examining that internal damage.  One character has tons of motivation but is strangely absent from huge swaths of the film while the other keeps everything so tightly wrapped that you don't know why they got up in the morning. This is a film with three leads. It starts thirteen years prior to the current day. It's just after 9-11. The national law enforcement/intelligence community is embarrassed, humiliated and angered about having missed the 9-11 conspiracy and attack. The word from the top is to make sure that nothing like that ever happens again. The means that law enforcement grunts like FBI agent Ray Kasten (Chiwitel Ejiofor), US Attorney's investigator Jessica Cobb (Julia Roberts) and local LA Detective Bumpy Willis (Dean Norris -Hank from Breaking Bad) are supposed to spend their every waking moment tracking down leads on Middle East inspired terrorism. 24-7. They aren't supposed to be wasting time surfing the net, sneaking out early to baseball games or writing blog posts. 

And they DEFINITELY (cough *Ray this means you* cough) aren't supposed to be flirting with or making goo goo eyes at the leggy Harvard Law School grad new assistant DA Claire Sloan (Nicole Kidman). Ray claims that he's not interested in Claire in that way because she's supposedly engaged. Ray can't help it that her fiance is on the east coast while Claire is in Los Angeles. Things just work out that way sometimes. However there are only so many times that you can eagerly offer to walk an attractive lady to her car or get caught staring at her in a pencil skirt before your co-workers (and obviously the target of your interest) know what you're thinking. And given that Ray's effective boss, the US District Attorney Morales (Alfred Molina) might have his own designs on Claire, Ray needs to be careful. Jessica playfully suggests he man up and go for it. But before Ray can stop lying to himself and make a move, tragedy strikes. The team has a radical mosque under surveillance. Local police discover a murder victim in a dumpster next to that mosque. So the feds are brought in on the investigation. It's a horrific crime. Maybe it has something to do with the mosque? The victim turns out to be Jessica's daughter. Ray views Jessica as something akin to a big sister and thus looked upon her daughter as his niece. So he takes this almost as hard as Jessica does. Ray starts to look around and ask people some questions. And sometimes he's not always nice about how he asks those hard questions. Getting on the bad side of an FBI agent with a vendetta is almost always a very bad idea.

After a while Ray settles on a shady character named Marzin (Joe Cole) as the prime suspect. But as Morales and some other FBI agents try to explain to Ray, things aren't that simple. This kicks off a thirteen year sojourn of lonely obsession, lost love and vengeance. You may think you'd want vengeance but how many of us could eagerly visit evil upon evil upon our enemies. On the other hand how many people would NOT want vengeance if one of their loved ones was brutalized and murdered. This could have been a better film. Nicole Kidman brings legs. Chiwitel Ejiofor brings earnestness and intensity. Julia Roberts is deliberately deglamorized and seemingly make-up free for most of the film. You wouldn't know that she and Kidman are the same age. Roberts looked old throughout the movie. Her role is quiet. You can miss some things if you're not looking for them. Unfortunately Kidman and Ejiofor don't have a lot of chemistry together. Kidman is ice to Ejiofor's fire. So you never get insight into what's really driving Kidman's character. She's mostly backdrop to Roberts and Ejiofor. All in all this was an ok movie if you have nothing better going on for just under two hours or are a fan of pencil skirts. But this is not something you need to go out of your way to watch. The cast was better than the direction and writing. I am considering trying to track down the Argentine film version or reading the novel. Secret in Their Eyes has multiple interesting storylines (possible office romance, utilitarian morality, horrible crime, twisted desire, law vs. justice) but ultimately they don't coalesce in a very satisfying way. 
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