What’s great about the criminal investigation genre is that it’s so formulaic that the best entries usually use it as a pretext to talk about something else.

Case — or is that cold case? — in point: Unidentified , the new detective flick from director Haifaa al-Mansour , utilizes the death of a young woman to explore how Saudi Arabia’s crushing patriarchy creates both victims and criminals out of its female population. Sleekly if routinely made, this classic whodunit is ultimately more interesting for what it reveals about the filmmaker’s homeland than for the mystery it unfolds.

What’s great about the criminal investigation genre is that it’s so formulaic that the best entries usually use it as a pretext to talk about something else.

Case — or is that cold case? — in point: Uniden

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