Sicario

Started by Lottery, June 19, 2015, 01:21:50 AM

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Lottery

In Mexico, SICARIO means hitman. In the lawless border area stretching between the U.S. and Mexico, idealistic FBI agent, Kate Macer, is enlisted by an elite government task force official to aid in the escalating war against drugs. Led by an enigmatic consultant with a questionable past, the team sets out on a clandestine journey forcing Macer to question everything that she believes in order to survive.

Directed by Denis Villeneuve
Written by Tyler Sheridan
Starring Emily Blunt, Benicio Del Toro and Josh Brolin
Release Date -  September 18th, 2015



Looks very intense/anxiety inducing.

samsong

this was really good.  the level of dread and the darkness this movie descends into is reminiscent of claire denis's Bastards.  from a purely formal perspective, it's nearly flawless and an incredibly effective thriller.  the majority of the film's flaws are attributable to the writing, which is a shame because villeneueve and company mine the screenplay for everything it's worth and transform it into something approaching greatness.

performances are all great -- benicio del toro's always been a favorite of mine -- but deakins is the real star here, which is sort of par for the course for him at this point as he continues to perfect his craft.  i'm tempted to say this is career-best work.  the cool and the existential haven't been fused in the imagery of a film quite like this since jean-pierre melville, who i only recently found out is a hero of deakins's.  there's one shot in particular that cause an involuntary, audible "jesus christ" to leave my mouth while in the theater.

Gold Trumpet

It's pretty perfect. Action movies are genre of basic enjoyment so I've seen a lot but this one surprised me. Just the handling and execution and the way the film was perfect both in building up suspense and playing to the realism factor of the situation really got to me. I also did not see a few surprises and twists but the handling is done so well I don't think knowledge will detain me from enjoying it as much on second or third viewing. Really great film.

No idea if it's great in any "best of the year" sense, but it's such a better film than pretty much all films comparable to it.

RegularKarate

Yeah, I just saw this last night. It's so well made and it made me really angry. It took until this morning, going over it in my head after a series of cartel nightmares for me to realize that's part of what's really good about this. It sets you up to want it to be something different than it is.

Holy shit does this thing build tension.

Fernando

yes, this is great and the Deakins/Villeneuve duo were a match made in heaven.

all the cast was pretty much perfect but Benicio was the stand out for me.

Quote from: samsong on September 23, 2015, 03:26:49 AM
but deakins is the real star here, which is sort of par for the course for him at this point as he continues to perfect his craft.  i'm tempted to say this is career-best work.  the cool and the existential haven't been fused in the imagery of a film quite like this since jean-pierre melville, who i only recently found out is a hero of deakins's.  there's one shot in particular that cause an involuntary, audible "jesus christ" to leave my mouth while in the theater.

out of curiosity, what shot are you talking about? I'l try to guess, when she entered the cave?

minor spoilers

reality trivia. those bodies hanging from the bridges are just the tip of this horrible war and Juarez's been living that nightmare for a long time, I swear you guys don't want to know the sick shit these assholes did/do, here in Monterrey we had our share of that violence but things have cooled down in the last few years.

samsong

Quote from: Fernando on November 03, 2015, 04:21:49 PM

Quote from: samsong on September 23, 2015, 03:26:49 AM
but deakins is the real star here, which is sort of par for the course for him at this point as he continues to perfect his craft.  i'm tempted to say this is career-best work.  the cool and the existential haven't been fused in the imagery of a film quite like this since jean-pierre melville, who i only recently found out is a hero of deakins's.  there's one shot in particular that cause an involuntary, audible "jesus christ" to leave my mouth while in the theater.

out of curiosity, what shot are you talking about? I'l try to guess, when she entered the cave?

it happened little before that, when the special ops teams are walking towards the cave, and it's shot with them all silhouetted against the very end of magic hour.  they enter the frame looking like giants and it looks like they're descending into an inky abyss below a blood red sky.


Garam

A half-hour sequence with Del Toro made me glad i stuck this to the end, but holistically i found this to be just another gross US Military Industry Complex macho wankfest, albeit a well crafted and acted one.


Heli shits all over this movie from a great height.

Alexandro

Half agree with Garam here. I kept trying to figure out if it wasn't just a matter of me being too used to this kind of horrific violence in Mexico, because I felt very little shock or emotional responses to the pretty disturbing things that are shown here. But perhaps part of the reason for that is precisely the film's most celebrated aspect, which is Deakin's cinematography. Sure is awesome and beautiful, but to me it felt maybe too awesome and crisp to be dealing with this world, and the film didn't seem to gain anything for it except the visual beauty which is obvious and yet pointless.

Heli gets this right, all right. But it certainly has it's own problems aesthetically and ideologically.

Jeremy Blackman

SPOILERS

Quote from: Garam on December 23, 2015, 03:28:52 AMbut holistically i found this to be just another gross US Military Industry Complex macho wankfest

Except it's a switcheroo, like RK was saying.

I usually allow myself to be sucked in by whatever moral universe a movie presents. But it was still an accomplishment that even 2/3 the way through, I viewed the protagonist (Kate) as naive, learning hard lessons about the real world, etc... and then was reversed pretty much right where the film wanted me to be.

This is clearly not meant to be an exposé about the horrors of the drug war. It has a very narrow scope.

I just wish the script was better, because everything else was breathtaking. I think samsong nailed it:

Quote from: samsong on September 23, 2015, 03:26:49 AMthe majority of the film's flaws are attributable to the writing, which is a shame because villeneueve and company mine the screenplay for everything it's worth and transform it into something approaching greatness.

I don't mind being manipulated. It's only a problem when I can't ignore the moving parts. The state police officer's son was way over the top... just a strangely transparent way to tug at our heart strings before we can even make sense of it. All you understand is that you're being told to care about a character and that it will definitely be important later.

Also, making Kate sign off on the operation with a gun to her head.... really? We knew she was going to sign. We also knew Sicario wasn't about to explode her head all over himself, with no silencer. But we simply needed our protagonist to have no other option, to maximize her moral purity.

These were not elegant choices.

I still kinda loved the movie, though.