J.T. Walsh wears a Rolex

Robert Towne wrote Chinatown, then moved into directing, and Tequila Sunrise (1988) was his third feature behind the camera. Mel Gibson plays a retired dealer trying to go straight, Kurt Russell the detective who is also his oldest friend, and Michelle Pfeiffer the restaurateur caught between them. J.T. Walsh plays Hal Maguire, the DEA agent leaning on the investigation, and in one office scene he rests his left elbow on a filing cabinet with a metal watch catching the light at his cuff.

You can see that there is a watch. You cannot see which one. The dial, the bezel, the bracelet all dissolve into soft focus and motion blur, and the half-glimpsed wrist gives up nothing more than a glint of steel. It may well be a Rolex, the brand a film like this hangs on its men almost by reflex, but the frame will not say which, and an honest reading stops there: a watch on Maguire's wrist, possibly a Rolex, and nothing on screen to carry it further.