Argentina, 1985 – ABC Film Challenge – Oscar Nominations – A – Argentina, 1985 – Movie Review
Director: Santiago Mitre
Writer: Santiago Mitre, Mariano Llinas (Screenplay)
Cast
- Ricardo Darin (The Secret in Their Eyes)
- Peter Lanzani (The Clan)
- Francisco Bertin (Taekwondo)
- Santiago Armas Estevarena
- Alejandra Flechner (The Lost Brother)
Plot: A team of lawyers takes on the heads of Argentina’s bloody military dictatorship during the 1980s in a battle against odds and a race against time.
Runtime: 2 Hours 20 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Story: Argentina, 1985 starts when Julio Cesar Strassera (Darin) leads a public prosecution against a military dictatorship. The case will cause public headlines and it doesn’t take long before Julio sees his family getting threatened. Meanwhile, Luis Moreno Ocampo (Lanzani) joins the prosecution case.
As the case unfolds, the horrors of what the military had been doing get revealed. However, the more truths that come out, the deadlier the story becomes for the prosecutors who find themselves being targeted by fellow military members.
Verdict on Argentina, 1985
Argentina, 1985 is a biographical drama following a prosecutor trying to sentence a military dictatorship group. It follows the unlikely legal team coming together to punish the group that caused countless deaths and suffering. However, it won’t be easy as nobody wants to see the military as the bad guys.
This is an interesting movie that gets to highlight one of the biggest criminal cases in Argentinian history. By doing this we get to see the pressure placed upon the legal team to do the right thing. It highlights the dangers placed on them and recites the horror stories of the dictatorship. While this only focuses on the first case, it showed how the door would be open for 1000s more in the future.
Final Thoughts – Argentina, 1985 is a powerful thriller with a tense real story.