La buca (2014)

Armando has just been released from prison after serving a thirty-year sentence (reduced to twenty-seven for good behavior) for murder and robbery, crimes he maintains he did not commit. He adopts a dog he happens to find outside the prison, and because of the dog he meets Oscar, a misanthropic, crooked lawyer who persuades him to sue the state and seek millions in compensation. Armando tells his story, revealing that he had a very dear friend, Tito, who had secretly organized the robbery in which someone was killed, and a woman he loved, Arianna, who had worked with him as a waitress at a party. He also recounts that the getaway car caught fire after an accident and that Arianna disappeared. Helping them is Carmen, the owner of a bar opposite Oscar’s home-office, who once had a fling with the lawyer and is attracted to the former prisoner. The lawyer sets out to find witnesses and evidence to support Armando’s innocence. After retrieving photographs from the fateful evening, Carmen spots in one of them a child who was never mentioned during the trial. Armando, meanwhile, finds out where Arianna’s father is, now ill and suffering from amnesia, and this leads him to Arianna’s home in San Bernardino, Switzerland, where she had vanished under the name Rosa Leonardi. He goes there and meets Arianna’s daughter, who tells him that her mother has died. With the possibility of having the woman testify on Armando’s behalf in the retrial now gone, Oscar focuses the defense on the testimony of the child, now an adult, feeding him false memories; but in court, the witness’s unreliability comes to light. Tito appears instead, testifies to his friend’s innocence, and reveals that the charred body found in the burned-out car was not his, but belonged to an accomplice. He also confesses to Armando that he and Arianna had run away together, changed their identities, and had a daughter, and that he himself has little time left to live. Armando is declared innocent but receives no compensation, and Oscar, who had put him and the dog up, throws him out. Outside the lawyer’s house, Armando is hit by a bus because of a pothole in the road, though he is not seriously hurt, and Oscar immediately starts planning a lawsuit to claim compensation.