Betrayed

I thought the film "Betrayed" was rather good: tense and almost moving at times. I knew it was directed by Costa-Gavras from a script by Joe Eszterhas so I knew what to expect to a certain degree: a story that involves a person in a moral dilemma with a decision to make that will be the right one morally; that there will be a moment when the person will be prompted to make the decision by a fact found out late in the story. Joe Eszterhas stuff. And I knew that Costa-Gavras would have the ability to interpret the story successfully (as he had done some time before in his famous film "Z"). So I was not disappointed.
Not so one of the gurus of film criticism, David Thomson, who thought the film "idiotic". Thomson has not much good to say about either the director or the script-writer. I have seen three films directed by Costa-Gavros and was impressed by them if not thrilled: "Z", "The Confession" and "Missing". "Betrayed" was more entertaining I think because the director didn't force a political message into the plot. That there was one there was obvious - man involved in Ku Klux Klan activities is investigated by a woman cop who falls in love with him - i.e. let's look into the prejudices of The Deep South so that the world will know THE TRUTH. Sort of thing. As if we didn't already know it. It's been tackled enough (one film I recall had a Ku Klux Klan grand master - or whatever - played by Ronald Reagan; good film too). This is one of David Thomson's points: that it is "unbelieveable". I admit that you have to stretch your beliefs a bit but it's worth in this case suspending them altogether and take the film as a thriller, which it is; a good one too.
Both the director and the script writer went on to do worse films. Eszterhas did the script for "Basic Instinct"...... say no more except that he got $3 million for it. As Thomson says: "nothing in that film is as shocking as the $3 million fee".