Based on the true events around the death of Greek politician Grigoris Lambrakis, Costa-Gavras excels presenting its viewers the inner intricacies of a proto-fascist and military state, and how these institutions try to hold onto power while keeping at bay any sort of opposing views in order to maintain the status-quo.

It is true that the movie starts a bit slow, and it gets better as it progresses. The opening sequence where the military police is exposing the motives and reasons for prosecuting those who challenge the current state of things and their ideas, being either through indoctrination or direct violence, is fantastic, but after that we go through a small parenthesis dealing with the hardships that the pacifists who take a stand against the established policies go through, which only feels as a bridge in order to get when the real tragic events occur and the investigations of the “incident” starts.

It is in this more thrilleresque part of the film, which is basically its majority of time, where the movie truly excels and grabs your attention completely. The magistrate leading the investigation is played to perfection by Jean-Louis Trintignant, whose depiction of a sober but strong-willed man of justice tops by far a star-studded cast (Yves Montand, Irene Papas, Jacques Perrin, Renato Salvatori…).

Obviously, the most engagingly visual imagery and filming is during the first part of the film, where the documentarian style takes over to present what is going on in the streets. The protests, attacks, repression, etc. All those moments in which the population is the main actor of what is going on it is either displayed as if a distant camera was candidly shooting it or as if were immersed in-between all the action. But then again, as it was already advanced, besides those technical elements, that part of the film just simply feels much more void of the political content and elements that will be so much ingrained in the plot moving forward.

In the end, we find ourselves with a greatly interesting and entertaining political thriller, with no big flaws, that gets better and better as we advance but which nonetheless is revealed a bit with uneven results. When it spends more time on the technicalities (which are splendid) we lose some political substance, and when we focus on the political substance (which is the highlight of the story and film) the form feels more rudimentary and common.