Sicario

I had to listen to the soundtrack while street-viewing Cuidad Juárez for an hour, fascinated. Sicario is a masterfully filmed, ultra-atmospheric trip to the less hospitable corners of the US-Mexican border. An excellent Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Toro, starring after a long time in a role worthy of his talent and the demonic impression he’s able to create. The first half-hour of getting into the situation, the environment and getting to know new colleagues shows the most precise direction possible, going beyond even David Fincher’s talent and perfectionism (and I really mean that). Therefore, it is a pity that the script gradually dilutes the initial drive and the promise of something unprecedented, resulting in something different than we would like. The main character of an idealistic FBI agent is there to reflect the viewer’s fear of the law of the jungle in a war with Mexican cartels. If I were the leader of the team in this war, I would immediately get rid of her so as not to unnecessarily hinder the storyline of a potentially unforgettable film and not to divert attention from what is essential. But the screenwriter, who sees her as less knowledgeable about the harshness of the conditions between Juarez and El Paso than the average Central European viewer, based the dramatic core of the story on her character (!). That’s too bad, because thanks to Villeneuve’s direction, Sicario could otherwise have been the year’s best film. (10/23/2015)

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)

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)

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)

Sicario might be the work of pure genius. Somehow, I couldn’t find better words to describe it after I saw it. It comes up with a very brutal idea, which at the same time isn’t too original, either. The source of genius for this movie are the actors, for whom I have nothing but words of praise. Emily Blunt, Benicio Del Toro and Josh Brolin put in absolutely top-level acting performances that made you embrace ad reject every new moment in their lives the way they themselves embraced and rejected it. Another great asset of the movie is Denis Villeneuve’s direction, which turns what at first sight seems like a classical gangster movie into a whole lot more. All that was clear to me already in the opening action scene, which is incredibly raw and which at that point could find no match in similar movies. And obviously I can’t fail to mention the music of Jóhann Jóhansson, who is the man who took this movie to perfection with his unpleasant sounds, which made this movie as tense as a wire stretched across the road. I must admit that I haven’t felt so depressed before the start of an action scene as I did in this flick for a long time. All that proves that this movie stands on the genius of the authors themselves and I hereby tip my proverbial hat off to them. (11/17/2015)

Villeneuve at the top of his game. A brilliantly directed thriller one-time watch that will drive your colon into your brain through its brutally slow pace and Jóhann Jóhannsson's post-apo thunder. The ruthless trepanation of the skulls, which resembles through its ultra-dark vibe the prose of Cormac McCarthy, but otherwise is completely without claim to philosophical overlap. A bloody history from the frontier that documents that the second art Quebec surrealist has matured into one of the best mainstream directors. Casting a woman in the title role of this raw slab of meat is a brilliant move that completes the entire championship piece. When I compare the "mainstream films" this year in terms of price / performance / experience, Sicario wins. [90%] (10/12/2015)

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)

Denis Villeneuve gives new meaning to tension and forces me to grind the backrest of my seat or scan the rooftops for unwelcome movement. But it's not just about raw action or unpleasant dialogue, dominated by razor-sharp lines from Benicio Del Toro. All it takes is the most banal situation, driving a car or just looking at the Mexican landscape where none of us would want to be, and I know it: I know that this is a war you don't win, and two hours in it were enough for a lifetime – and yet also enough to want to experience it again, multiple times. (11/06/2015)

It's been ages, but it feels like yesterday. I remember the feeling of tension and excitement at the premiere of Alien. I don't mean the usual scary or action scenes, but the feeling you get as if you were in a trance from encountering something that greatly exceeds the usual genre standards and newly defines the concept of quality in that genre. Since then, I've had similar feelings a few more times, but I could probably count them on one hand. After a long hiatus, I felt that chill again with Sicario. The soundtrack is one you won't forget. You feel like you're sitting on a payload of plastic explosives, where you can't see the timer, but you perceive the relentless ticking of passing seconds. At the back of your head, you have a barrel pressed against you, and the safety switch clicks off in silence. Superlatives can be used to describe the cinematography, wherein the camera quickly descends from beautiful panoramic shots of nature to the road, where the viewer becomes part of a nervously anticipating automobile convoy, waiting for a surprise attack. The editing combines details and entities interspersed with large panoramas. While watching, I constantly felt overwhelming pressure, like a champagne bottle's cork. The director creates tension by allowing the viewer, like his protagonist, to stumble in uncertainty and only providing information in necessary doses. Sicario is a raw, dirty, and morally ambiguous thriller that only superficially conforms to the usual formula of action films. Instead of noble ideals, personal scores are settled here, and cynicism dominates. As one of the anti-heroes says, if we can't get 20% of Americans to stop injecting, snorting, and swallowing drugs, drugs won't disappear, and our goal must be to maintain the simplest market structure. Interesting agreements can be made with one major supplier. The film shows the sad infinity of the struggle between repressive state forces, equipped with greater powers and budgets and effectively evading control, and organized crime on the other hand, which is not bound by any rules and becomes increasingly brutal. It is a world where the elimination of one criminal group leads to the strengthening of another. For me, this is so far the most powerful film experience of 2015, and I have only two criticisms: Neither side of the conflict embraces armed shootouts in long tunnels dug between Mexico and the United States. Professionals are well aware that bullets bouncing off rock can incredibly deviously change direction, often finding their own side as a target. And those two poor souls in the car full of drugs could hardly have expected the police to work their way to them during a minute-long shootout. Despite the above-mentioned criticisms, I wholeheartedly give it the highest rating. This is a film that hit me hard. Overall impression: 95%. (10/30/2015)

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)

It's not the film of the year, but it's still the best combat or military thing since Miami Vice, which, by the way, also had a mafia bosses, drugs, money and fights for territory, but thanks to the masterfully crafted and incorporated love story it said something more; it was closer to the viewer, more tangible, more fateful. Sicario, in contrast is cold, almost emotionless – at times its nature is more like a documentary. Fantastically filmed, of course, but it won't be a legend. (11/01/2015)

With the reputation that this film has gained over time, I was expecting a little more than a greatly shot and acted film, but with a common story seen several times before. I was still looking for something with which Sicario would take my breath away, but only Deakins' camera, Villeneuve's directing and Jóhannsson's music (the introduction, convoy, tunnels, many great scenes) - the fact is that the screenwriter created a much more interesting substance a year later on his own in Wind River. (12/26/2017)

One realizes how refreshing it is when your main source of information about a film is the film itself. While McCarthy's study of the clash between Mexican and American mentalities is encumbered by an articulated nihilism, Sicario articulates the bare minimum on the same battlefield and just blends long takes of naturalistic close-ups with long shots of bleak brown border landscapes while Jóhannsson composes the soundtrack to the apocalypse. The nearly fifteen-minute sequence of prisoner pickup in Juarez is procedurally one of the best shot scenes I've come across in a long time, suggesting that Villeneuve would be able to pull a good film out of a Skip Woods script, which thankfully, he doesn't have to, because Sheridan's observational study has lots of aces up its sleeve and isn't afraid to push the only link between the viewer and the cinematic universe to the very edge of the plot, where there's nothing to do but impotently watch it all unfold. (02/17/2016)

Incredibly dark movie where at times you have a feeling that there is really no hope, that everyone is a jerk and that everyone will die. At times it's beautifully documentary-like and you have a feeling that you are witnessing a real operation. And then the actors impress you with their performances, which are excellent, especially Emily and Benicio. But Josh is also properly handled. (01/05/2016)

Even in his screenwriting debut, it was obvious that Taylor Sheridan had found a fondness for fragile heroines operating in harsh worlds without rules. It is also for this reason that Sicario is constructed with the character of Kate as the viewer's guide through the raw environment of the Mexican drug cartels. And because she is an extremely fragile creature, her "guidance" is a hell of a rough affair. The sheer contrast of these realities is depicted almost perfectly here – e.g. the scene on the plane, for example, where Brolin and Del Toro's characters are sitting pretty while Kate is basically petrified. Purely in terms of emotions, it struck me that for the men, most of the "work" in this movie is probably tantamount to going for a game of golf, taking a girlfriend to the movies, or frying up a fancy steak. Kate's emotions, on the contrary, are very divided, uncertain, and often intensely uncomfortable. Sheridan can thank Villeneuve a thousand times over, because he manages to demonstrate all the doubts and fears of the main character in an impressive audiovisual way. The sparse lighting of most of the scenes gives the whole film just the right touch of darkness, but at the same time it is visually almost screamingly aesthetic (the scene on the roof of the base with the sunset in reds looks almost romantic until the "fireworks" start). Kudos must also be given to Roger Deakins, because you simply don’t see locations that are so cramped yet so freaking impressively filmed. The fantastic exposition along with the gradual demonstration of more and more atrocity is simply brilliant. A prime example of a film where a script with balls is supported by direction with even bigger balls. (11/11/2018)