Sicario

Excellently written, excellently acted. Roger Deakins’ fantastic camerawork combined with Villeneuve’s precise direction is slowly but surely catching up with David Fincher. In combination with Jóhansson’s unmusical music it paints a crushing atmosphere. Action sparse, but effective. A rich drama that breaks the rules and mixes the cards. The harsh ending comes from real life. Yeah, yeah. (10/29/2015)

Sicario is an intense action crime-thriller that betrays both the protagonist and the viewer. Most of the time, the film comes across as a surgically precise procedural in the mould of Zero Dark Thirty, giving us enough information and paying close attention to the preparation and execution of individual scenes of action that lead to more action, rather than focusing on the relationships between the characters. In fact, we spend almost the whole time watching a revenge movie along the lines of Ford’s The Searchers, but it doesn’t let us know who is seeking revenge for what (or if anyone is seeking revenge at all). The supply of information is severely limited (both of the brutal interrogations, where in a bit of unrestricted narration we abandon the protagonist’s perspective for a moment, end before we learn anything important), putting us in the same position as Kate, who finds herself in an unfamiliar environment controlled exclusively by men. Throughout the film, she tries in vain to understand how – in Javier’s words – “watches work” and to see beneath the surface instead of just watching time pass. Just as in the uncompromising prologue, when she barely dodges a shotgun blast, thanks to which she learns what’s hidden behind the wall, she’s mostly lucky and has zero control over what happens around her throughout the rest of the film. The protagonist’s limited access to information corresponds to the shooting of some of the dialogue scenes in whole units, thus emphasising her vulnerability to the hostile world in which she finds herself. Sicario is primarily a clever, brilliantly rhythmised genre movie with some of the most impressive action scenes of the year (one of which, like the climax of Zero Dark Thirty, apparently took inspiration from video game). It shows us the disgustingness, opacity and danger of the war with the drug cartels particularly through stylistic choices and the structure of the narrative. If we were to approach it as a psychological probe or a complex portrait of the conditions on the US-Mexico border (à la Traffic), it probably wouldn’t hold up. The heightened attention paid to the Mexican police officer from the beginning serves the purely utilitarian purpose of reinforcing our emotional engagement (and ensuring a powerful final shot), rather than offering a fully formed view from the other side. The evil that the characters face here has a unique form similar to that in Michael Mann’s thrillers (whose work with sound design during shootouts is no less precise), whereas Sicario’s western iconography and uncompromising (and not the slightest bit cool) approach to violence are reminiscent of Sam Peckinpah’s films. In fact, the thematisation of the (much less distinct than before) boundary between civilisation and savagery, and the crossing and shifting of that boundary, makes Sicario one of the best Mexico-flavoured revisionist westerns since The Wild Bunch. 85% (10/23/2015)

Despite all the considerable qualities (especially the first half is genre perfection and it is unusually intense), in the last third it turns into "awakening from naivety" and nothing more. Which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing if it weren't so obvious starting from the scene on the plane (which is about the twentieth minute) and especially if the main heroine wasn't so unrealistically extremely naive (not to be confused with her moral principles), although Emily performed her character well in an otherwise believable procedural movie it seems unnatural and disturbing. And so the viewer waits for the final twenty minutes eagerly until he finally comes to know what everyone already knows for a long time. The fact that the whole thing, despite the naive screenplay, still works perfectly is because Villeneuve/Deakins/Del Toro/Jóhannsson are great together. But maybe I'm just spoiled by Don The Cartel and Winslow that even an absolute masterpiece in this department looks void to me. (10/29/2015)

An intense procedural that pulls out the best possible concentrate from all the ingredients. It draws you into the movie theater with audiovisual fire, and, with the passing of a few days, lets the juicy thought processes ripen, ingeniously hiding behind a terse story about the clash between a young idealist and the worn-out warriors against drugs; you rarely see absolutely great filmmaking like this so laced together. I'd start shoveling over the shiny statuettes right now. (11/04/2015)

The reviews here criticizing Emily Blunt's character are stupid and stem from a misunderstanding of the film's concept. By choosing a fragile woman as the centre of the narrative, as a kind of wide-eyed and out of place Alice in Wonderland, Villeneuve makes the viewers themselves grope and question. Emily is a beautiful contrast to the rough world of tough men who shoot from the hip, and the final denouement is an emotional blast, giving the preceding events meaning and significance. In real life, you’ll probably end up like my friend who commented at the beginning "It's a bit confusing", and then at the end apologetically said "Okay, Villeneuve, you played me like a cat with a mouse." The kind of authenticity and rawness that Sicario presents is something that 99% of film production can only dream of. And one thing is certain, charisma has an identical twin, and his name is Benicio del Toro. (12/20/2015)