With the talent on hand, it’s strange how “Secret in Their Eyes” is so bad.

“Secret in Their Eyes,” directed by Billy Ray and starring Chiwetel Ejiofor and Julia Roberts, fails at being a dark and mysterious thriller, and ends up convoluted and uneventful.

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It’s 2002 and the FBI is ramping up its hunt on terrorists in the U.S. An elite group of investigators is staking out a mosque when a dead body is found in a trash dump nearby. The body turns out to be the daughter of an investigator on the team.

Thirteen years later, Ray, one of the investigators, thinks he finds the killer again. This leads Ray to start an off-the-books case against the murderer — one that could lead him down a road he never wanted to go.

Julia Roberts is one of the most overrated actresses of the last 20 years. Since hitting it big in “Pretty Woman,” she is an individual who has made millions off of her name.

The actress is usually the worst aspect about her films. “Secret in Their Eyes” is no different.

Roberts plays Jess, the investigator whose daughter is murdered. After the killing, the character becomes a shell of a person, only thinking of finding her daughter’s killer. This is par the course for “revenge” movie, Roberts doesn’t sell either the shell of a person side or the actual, likeable character beforehand.

This leaves audience members having little empathy with Jess. She is a character one feels for, but only because they can understand the idea of losing someone close.

The problem is partially because Roberts comes off as someone reading a script and not a real person, but also because the actual story is all over the place.

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“Secret in Their Eyes,” on the other hand, comes off as amateurish and a bit confusing. For a movie based in two separate years, it does not present time very well and it is confusing.

The twist ending, which should feel huge and impactful, comes out of left field and feels cheap.

Ejiofor is the only aspect enjoyable about this film.

It is hard to find the good of this film, but the English actor is a perfect place to start.

He is excellent in everything. However, he doesn’t save this movie.

Stars: 2 out of 5

Jacob Pierce can be reached at [email protected] or at 536-3326.