Anthony Reeves

This film is compelling and disturbing. The questions it poses about the need to balance public safety against the rights of the inidvidual to justice and personal liberty are universal. The movie describes the methodical efforts by police to trick Werner into confessing guilt to a murder - rape that occurred years in the past. We see Werner through the eyes of the police undercover agent assigned the task of monitoring him in the guise of a coworker. As the plot unfolds, we view the somewhat perverse process by which Werner's atrophied self flourishes as a result of the agent's seeming friendship. When the skein of elaborate desceptions and betrayals collapses at the end, the film remains resolutely agnostic about the question of Werner's guilt or innocense. It is, in effect, case closed, but not case solved.