SICARIO by denis villeneuve, starring emily blunt, benicio del toro and josh brolin

wow. literally half of this movie is variations on Blunt looking confused, anxious, or distrusting:

http://i.imgur.com/NgCZ5e7.jpg

for the "lead" character, she sure has little to say. Every time there's dialog between characters they show her instead of who's speaking ?!?!

That Edelstein review was on point, I think.
The movie's constant oppressive dread and beautiful shooting more than justified its flaws to me.

Just seen this. That was Sense of Doubt from Heroes, wasn't it?

No idea what to make of it politically or morally, I thought it was a very good horror movie.

I thought the one who went over to the mansion was a bit too cool and good, and it might have been better if the story was that he cocked up because it was a nutjob plan in the first place.

the way the actors arced their performances from "roguish loose cannon" to "creepy, amoral murderer" is really going to stick with me.

Agree with this especially re: the mansion guy's American mate or handler or whoever he was.

And very subtle signposting with badman cowboy cop in the bar scene - I mean I knew he was up to no good by the way he looked at them but I thought he was just looking for trouble generally.

I saw Miss Bala the other day. There's, like, at least 3 Mexican films that does what this piece of crap does so much better. Probably much more, I haven't seen that many.

Might look that one up, what are some others? I did feel that - like, I'm not sure I should be sitting here soaking in American thrillerised takes on the cartel situation, should be paying attention to what the Mexicans make of it

Heli is a really stark and tough look at the madness, 600 Miles is a bit more americanized, with Tim Roth as the American lead! He is pretty good in it. Those were the other two I was thinking of. All of them include actual Mexicans in the film in ways less pathetic than the guard in Sicario. It's films depicting a warscape, with people trying to get by, not the wasteland that Sicario revels in.

Rather good movie.

The del Toro revenge stuff had me thinking this movie doubles as an allegory of the SOCOM/Shia/Sunni snafu. Need to rescreen anyway bcz Deakins <3

oh I was referring to Hell or High Water, written by Taylor Sheridan. Sicario is dreary.

why was everyone so big on Hell or High Water? it was fine and ben foster was pretty good in it but it was also very cliched and morally confused

it's a genre film. I would say "morally layered."

Non-comic book movie makes money, not a bad movie. That's the story.

I want to check that one out. It's still in at least one theater here, so maybe on discount Tuesday.

I finally watched Sicario. The plot leaves a lot to be desired but the core vibe, as I texted a friend, is "this film is some dark shit" and I felt like it kept that up without ever quite drifting over into being farcical. Del Toro as unstoppable killer stepped up to that line but by that point he was more force majeure than human character.

About halfway in, after Blunt's character actually enters the bank, I was sure the scenes revolving around the family man cop in Nogales were setting him up as her eventual killer.

Have watched some of Miss Bala - can report that I really feel the difference now between that way of presenting the cartel problem and the way Sicario did it

really want to see Hell or High Water.

I saw this last night, I thought it was really good but strangely a little light on story. however i think it gets a lot of mileage out of its atmosphere and performances, and i thought the soundtrack was A+. i don't notice soundtracks too much in recent films, it's nice to get blindsided by a good one.

Hell or High Water is good, but it's got some of the same on-the-nose "this is bigger than your average thriller, it's about the REAL ISSUES man" stuff that Sicario had. Like, the screenwriter literally makes a cameo herding cattle and says, "Can you believe I'm doing this shit in 2016?!" It's like, yeah, we get it; every character in this movie has already given a speech about the state of the modern economy.

That said, it's nice to have a reasonably well-written movie that tries to pull off that stuff, even if it doesn't always succeed, which is I think why it's getting the praise it's getting. The acting is uniformly good, Foster especially, and David Mackenzie is a better director than Villeneuve, even if HoHW doesn't have a Deakins-level talent as DP.

and the final scene is like a far better version of the sicario finale, which i found more than a little silly and overheated

this felt like a very well done but ultimately bad movie...

good action setpieces & acting & terrible overall story & plot

which?

Krush Groove

which? presumably the film in the motherfucking thread title

I thought we were on to this week's feature on The Wonderful World of Disney but I guess it's still the Sicario thread

rewatching this right after rewatching NCFOM. Compare and contrast!

Benicio Del Toro, Jeffrey Donovan and Josh Brolin all together, and no funnies = this film is just a little tiny bit up its own ass

I watched it for the first time a few weeks ago & was really impressed. Not at all what I expected - none of the usual exposition-heavy handholding/narration etc. I enjoyed it, super-tense, beautifully shot

The convoy scenes going in & coming out were so good

Brolin kinsa nailed the whole "spook" steez & attitude, right down to the flip flops lol

*kinda

I think that steez is a little bit overcooked in movies because the only spooks that hollywood guys consult with are retired yaga-yagas who tend to exaggerate their careers to bank fees

btw I'm glad we still say "steez" aren't you?

but in terms of the hollywood idea of a "spook" he did a good job

it would be a pretty boring role for anyone to play if it wasn't kinda overcooked imo

somewhere in between the high-strung obsessives trying to catch Jason Bourne and the retired SOCOM guys in flip flops is a boring person competently doing office work with ~25% travel

i'm enjoying jeffrey donovan's post-'burn notice' career, seems to play a lot of kennedys

xpost exactly. suburban-looking normcore

Benicio still brought some funnies to this, didn't he?

i don't know what the deal was with the wet willie torture of bernthal but i appreciated its use

I hate this fucking movie lol

i really liked this. i loved the twist that i only realized toward the end that the main character of the movie is not the "hero" at all. she kinda sucks at her job! it's totally not about her. i thought that was pretty cool. they do a good job of making you think that she matters and she doesn't matter AT ALL. that felt novel to me.

I watched this on a flight back from ireland last month and thought it was great but then a friend told me theres something about watching stuff at atmosphere that makes you like it more?

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/10/why-we-cry-on-planes/280143/

explains why interstellar made me cry.. stupid ass movie playing me like a fiddle!

Doesn't fuckin work on toddlers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pymm6cmE9uQ

Brolin least interesting thing in first one but hell yes I'll see this

I don't know that it needed a sequel.

looks like it maintains the Villeneuve style. I agree w/Brolin assessment but I think he was certainly good, his charisma gets him a long way in that type of role. Stefano Sollima directed this, he also directed the film version of Suburra.

wondering if Sheridan has a trilogy in mind, i'd be down for that.

2icario

A coworker said something about not needing more Sicario after he mentioned liking Villeneuve’s last few films and I thought he meant rewatching it. I had no clue whatsoever a sequel was being made. I guess we might get more Benicio, who was uh actually the title character in the first, now that I think about it?

SICARIO sucked.

yea I thought it was booooooooooring

Sicario wasn't awful, but the only way I'd care about a sequel would be if it was directed by John Hyams (the dude behind the DTV Universal Soldier sequels).

i would be down for sequel if it’s at the same quality level.

i loved Sicario