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

http://www.joblo.com/newsimages1/sicario-trailer-fbpic.jpg

anyone seen this yet?

going to myself when it comes to boston tomorrow. i liked prisoners well enough despite its OTT moments; this one seems to be operating on another level entirely in terms of dread and moral ambiguity. (still need to check out incendies and enemy.) reviews are fairly superlative though i recall hearing the cannes reception was mixed (not that that's a big surprise)

found this image from one of the posters v striking
http://static1.squarespace.com/static/53323bb4e4b0cebc6a28ffa2/t/55b7ab82e4b005725c9891bd/1438100363856/?format=750w

lotta critics i trust thought this was bullshit

Looks good but I'll probably wait till it's streaming or on DVD, as I read Don Winslow's The Cartel not long ago so am kinda burned out on the subject.

villeneuve is kind of a crappy filmmaker BUT his last two films have had some of the most stunning cinematography i've seen in contemporary movies. so if that's yr thing...

roger deakins IIRC

deakins did prisoners and this, yeah.

xxp reading the cartel, immensely draining as it was, is what started my current deep dive into cartel/drug war fiction and nonfiction that has yet to let up, lol. not to mention i'm of the opinion that the war on drugs is perhaps the worst fallacy/crime perpetrated on this country's people by its government, so always interested in how it is examined and portrayed. have a strong feeling this one ain't exactly pro.

My local critic gave it 3.5 but Villeneuve strikes me as too fucking ponderous.

I haven't seen a Hollywood flick in weeks, so I guess I'll go with Damon's outer space drag act.

actually some decent choices this weekend

keep forgetting this was done by the director of Prisoners which I really dug (and Enemy which was... interesting at least), so i will probably give it a shot sooner or later. trailer didn't enthuse me though.

i guess i'm a little skeptical of fashionably pessimistic movies about the drug war, not because they are wrong, but because there's a long line of em going back (at least) to "traffic"

though i guess this is equally an allegory for the excesses of the 'war on terror'

i should have said, there's a long line of em going back (at least) to "traffic"... and none of them are particularly good.

traffic is utterly remarkable as a filmmaking achievement and...kind of a mess otherwise, although i do stand by the benicio portion bc it doesn't really have the problems of the rest of the film

Ha – the del Toro part is the drag. Maybe cuz sentimentality about baseball leaves me cold.

well it's not a terrible film... it has a lot going for it... political sophistication is probably not one of those things.

re. filmmaking, something about the mannered "realism" (the weird combo of documentary-like camera style and pictorialism) makes the film somewhat badly (as with other soderbergh films of that era as well as stuff like "syriana").

oops i meant to say that the particular mix of documentary camera style and pictorialism (along with the clumsy star acting) really dates the film.

i mean it felt kind of modish and dated even when it came out IMO

Enemy was garbage - and the trailer for this one gave off a heavy Bigelow vibe.

def prioritize Villeneuve's Canadian college massacre feature Polytechnique, and Enemy

when these guys go Hollywood, there's often nothin worse

Emily Blunt makes me want to try this but I'll probably pass until it's on Netflix. She was great in Edge of Tomorrow and kind of awful in everything else, thinking maybe action is her zone.

when these guys go Hollywood, there's often nothin worse

not sure i see a huge change in his work when he went hollywood. often the hollywood films just expose the flaws that were there all along and just disguised by "indie" cred and a patina of authenticity.

and there are probably as many 'indie' directors who only got really good when they went mainstream as there are folks whose talent shriveled up on contact with a multi-million-dollar budget.

also i keep wanting to insert an "o" into emily blunt's last name. shouldn't it be emily blOunt?

xp milo also pretty good in Looper

insert joke about inserting something into emily blunt

oh dear

I saw this, loved the cinematography and the soundtrack. The performances of the three main characters were also very good. But it feels like something is missing. I can't really name any specific flaws to this movie but somehow I came out of it unimpressed. I remember feeling the same way about Prisoners.

I guess it's the way everything gets wrapped up so neatly, a movie in this kind of setting should be more chaotic.

yeah i think that whole post is otm.

there are a few very effective scenes but in a weird way it's almost as if everything gets explained too much.

feels like a missed opportunity, and i wish more of it had been set in juarez.

also im kinda over movies and other media that portray the US intelligence apparatus as somehow all-knowing and in total command of their actions--the real horror would be realizing that they dont know what the fuck they are doing.

which was the case for most of the Cold War, coming to head during Watergate.

it's p clear they still don't know what the fuck they're doing

also im kinda over movies and other media that portray the US intelligence apparatus as somehow all-knowing and in total command of their actions--the real horror would be realizing that they dont know what the fuck they are doing.

― ryan, Friday, October 2, 2015 1:33 PM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

idk isn't the whole point of this flick that what the FBI-DEA-black ops squad is doing is ultimately counterproductive/has nothing to do with justifiable law enforcement practices? that seems to be the vibe even in the trailers. but i'll know when i see it tonight or tomorrow i suppose

it was written by this dude, who bailed on Sons of Anarchy to perhaps focus on writing and not being on terrible tv shows.

http://41.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m91of5NlYy1rpat8ho1_500.jpg

no that totally is the point! it's not really a criticism of the movie but I tend to think the larger public isn't really challenged by those ideas. they expect, maybe even want, for the government to be willing to fudge the rules in the interest of "security." so it's a bit of cake having and eating too when films portray such organizations as shady but nearly omnipotent. feels more like a covert worship of power than a critique of it. just a vibe I get.

well yea thats the eternal debate over bigelow's last two flicks. personally i do think you can depict the viciousness and moral quandaries of deeds done by governments on film without endorsing them by simple virtue of creating that depiction, but many things try and fail.

along similar lines of sicario's subject matter, i think the show NARCOS does a good job of depiction-not-endorsement, often in intentional opposition to the line of thinking its american narrator is occasionally pushing

yeah i dont want to say "depiction is endorsement"--i guess what im saying (poorly) is that movies like this misjudge what it is they think they are depicting: it's not an outlaw security state but one operating exactly as its supposed to and with the tacit endorsement of the public.

probably impossible to talk about this more in depth until more people have seen the movie, but the revelation about a particular character would have been so much cooler if we were left to infer it rather than having another character walk us through it.

saw this last night and don't have a ton of ready #analysis bc I'm still overwhelmed and drained by it

I think it is saying that these government operations take place with the tacit support (typically via ignorance) of the public, and that these war-of-attrition back and forth escalations will continue on both sides as long as drugs are viewed as a battleground rather than a public issue (although obviously there's no mouthpiece character to voice the potential solution of legalization/treatment, bc even the best-intentioned characters here think enforcement can be accomplished in an above-board manner)

*public health issue

someone send me a copy of the cartel so i don't have to buy the gd hardback thanks

The catch-all justification for this kind of voyeuristic, seen-through-our-fingers tourism is that “this is the way it is,” which is also the rationale for Matt and Alejandro—the mindset that when things are this bad, anything goes. But Sicario doesn’t truly get inside the mixture of despair and outrage that this situation invites. Instead, the film exploits it, and leaves beautiful, befuddled Emily Blunt hypnotized by it, a stand-in for viewers who presumably want their eyes opened to the abject aspects of the drug war, and, if possible, widened in vicarious excitement. Sicario gives us plenty to look at, and yet the only thing it really illustrates is how hackneyed its maker’s motivations really are. Villeneuve is a terrific director—a youngish master. He may also be a genuine, mercenary sell-out before his time. This grimly beautiful movie is really very ugly.

http://reverseshot.org/reviews/entry/2098/sicario

"exploitative" in 2015 more often than not - "I think this movie has politics/worldviews I find ugly bc it depicts horrific situations as well as ppl whose worldviews about said situations are ugly and doesn't explicitly say 'this is horrible omg'"

ok that's a bit strong/an overly blanket statement on my part but like what do reviewers who object to movies like this in that matter actually want, some awkward third act stand against institutionalized militarized corruption?

i will say tho that the level of violence in ciudad juarez has dropped considerably since the 2008-2011 period of all-out slaughter - 2014 had over 400 homicides in stark contrast to the 1,900+ murders in 2011, for example. and the movie is depicting a world more in line with the 2008-2011 period.

Sicario gives us plenty to look at, and yet the only thing it really illustrates is how hackneyed its maker’s motivations really are. Villeneuve is a terrific director—a youngish master. He may also be a genuine, mercenary sell-out before his time. This grimly beautiful movie is really very ugly.

that's pretty much villeneuve's MO in his indie and mainstream films, wherever (or even if) you are inclined to draw the line between those two things.

honestly i feel similarly about the artier gus van sant, who is similarly peddling "important" topical subjects but really is just vampirishly depicting all manner of cruelty, martyrdom, etc. for shits n giggles.

i think Villeneuve is less of a serious blowhard than Van Sant, if for no other reason than that audience middle-finger ending to Enemy

Yes, I def prefer my vampirishly depicted cruelty w/out any important topical subject matters getting in the way

At least Van Sant's movies are shorter.

this was so boring. nothing happened

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

It didn't hang together at all but there were two or three scenes that were among the best of the year imo

agreed. it just didn't amount to anything, i felt

whoa just like the war on drugs 🤔🤔🤔

ha i thought you meant the band for a second and thought 'wait theres nothing good about them'

i welcome the balearic bits of the war on drugs tbh

DEA agents pursuing tanned drug lords across a breezy beach etc

the images and sound together were amazing but as a film, it’s among the many where the dynamic of being human seems by-the-numbers and not evocative of actual human experience or feeling

maybe that’s what it feels like to be an agent in the drug war, but even the character who is our entry point seems somewhat forced.

on the other hand, divorced from the dynamic of relating to normal people could benefit the sequel, an experience not attempting to relate to the average person but showing the detachment from people who appear at the other end of a gun

I've been saying this before, but Mexican filmmakers has made so many good films about the drug war that I don't really need an American/Canadian film which doesn't get any details right and doesn't make sense.

Villeneuve should not make political films (Polytechnique and Incendies are pretty bad as well) but luckily he isn't doing that anymore. He does have his strengths, no doubt about it.

yeah he can bench 450lbs iirc

I liked Incendies for its mythical qualities; I daren't take it seriously as political commentary. I prefer the weirder, cheaper end of his stuff (Maelstrom, Enemy)

i still think that emily blunt was one of the best macguffins i've ever seen in a movie. the film, ultimately, had nothing to do with her. i thought that was so cool! this movie was trickier than you might think. i'd watch it again. don't have high hopes for a sequel but i'd watch it on hulu or netflix.

I feel like a bad person for wanting it, but

SICARIO 2: SOLDADO by stefano sollima, starring catherine keener, benicio del toro, and josh brolin

somehow appeals to me. somehow they made the sequel title even more blunt (no emily, though)

its a video game adaptation without bothering with the video game first

seems like the new director's a decent fit, pretty good cinematographer pick, and imdb's claiming the music is Hildur Guðnadóttir, who worked with Johannsen on a lot of his good soundtracks, so my fingers are crossed

all we can really know for sure is Benicio del Toro will shoot some guys

by gad its enough

I can't see sicario anymore without recreating the ridiculous "that's chappie" twitter joke

benicio shows up on the airplane at the beginning, I lean to the side and whisper "he's the sicario"

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

so they mashed up Logan and Sicario huh

Wrote some of this on the general films thread: I saw Sicario 2 a couple nights ago and I thought it was solid but definitely a little less heightened and odd and mysterious than the first one. Stefano Sollima is good, but the film is definitely closer to Clear and Present Danger in terms of craft and style and even story: lots of government intrigue and failed missions leading to abandoning your people behind enemy lines shit.

The drawback w/having no Emily Blunt is you gotta turn your amoral characters w/murky motives into more moral dudes who question their mission. This isn’t necessarily a drawback but it makes this one a bit cleaner and more black and white than the first.

Del Toro and Brolin are both extremely good, the latter actually in particular. The story is just weirdly paced and as I said in the other thread the gov’t intrigue w/Matthew Modine and Catherine Keener just feels boilerplate.

The action scenes are extremely effective and the central ambush is tense.

If you did not like Sicario I’d say avoid this one though.

started poorly with chud-bait ‘zomg radical islamist terrorists are crossing the border disguised as mexican immigrants!’ bullshit, went steadily downhill from there in a miasma of sour machismo until it briefly looked like they had the guts to kill off benicio in a startlingly unglamorous and perfunctory way, then continued its downhill movement when it transpired that they did not

the first movie was bad, this one is bad and deeply unpleasant

I don’t think the writer thought through the terrorism angle, i guess the dude in the beginning was supposed to be unrelated to the dudes in the store attack? The latter group was from Jersey iirc? It didn’t make sense.

Also i don’t think a mom would do what the mom in the store attack scene did...

xpost. Agreed. Just an unpleasant, unnecessary flick.

the thing that really bugs me about these movies is that they're every bit as comic-booky and ridiculous as a rambo flick but we're expected to view it as something more than an excuse for people getting shot in interesting ways because it's draped in this oppressive olive-drab seriousness where everyone is a morally grey special operative who understands how to hold their weapon for maximum tactical awesomeness

benicio's back story is that he's a mild-mannered lawyer who somehow becomes the world's greatest killing machine after his family is murdered - we're never (iirc) told how this happens

he might as well have been bitten by a radioactive sniper scope for all the attention the movie gives to his transformation ffs

in retrospect so much of my enjoyment of the first movie was the cinematography/musical score gelling during the long overhead shots and underlit action scenes. accepting the entire "emily blunt's character is really there to be their foot in the door" non-twist as the key point of the plot, she's injected into the world of the central body of the film and expelled at the end like an audience member, perfect stand-in

the best part of sicario 2 was the trailer tbh

like c'mon when benicio does that ridiculous move where he's shooting the handgun really fast, that's the shot

yeah, the technical side of these movies is really impressive, i just wish it wasn't in the service of jerking off over the spectacle of hard-bitten men making 'difficult' decisions about murdering people in desperately awful situations

I do get the impression that the core audience isn't people who look at brolin & co. and think "these are the bad guys, too" which is bad

the "he's protecting the kid" narrative device in the second was lazy but adding "also he knows sign language because his murdered child was deaf" was perhaps a bridge too far and I may have stifled an "ahhh, c'mon" during my viewing

in a world... where grizzled men fire adavanced weapons with unheard of speed and accuracy in the pursuit of a hobby... GUN RANGE coming next fall

that was a movie with mark wahlberg iirc

i do get the impression that the core audience isn't people who look at brolin & co. and think "these are the bad guys, too" which is bad

otm - in a way i kinda appreciate that the sequel doesn't make as much of an effort to dress up its core interest in super-cool tactical manshooting in social-commentary drag tho, it's just these two horrible fucks from the first movie doing horrible shit unemcumbered by the presence of emily blunt going 'oooo shit maybe i should do something about this ahh fuck it i'll go along with it just once more'

i have to say, the kid put in a really good performance in the sequel, i liked her a lot

should probably begrudgingly rewatch the sequel when it's on a free streaming platform

looking at the credits, only now remembering that catherine keener was in this. one of the larger issues w/the sequel might have been casting good actors in the government oversight subplot and then giving that part of the script nothing but boilerplate material

bg, i must inform you that the actress that played the kid will be taking on the lead role... in a dora the explorer movie

obvious next step after a sicario film imo

and apparently omar made the same point re: keener/modine on another movies thread!

DORA THE EXPLORER by denis villeneuve, starring isabela moner, benicio del toro and josh brolin

an idealistic seven-year-old latina girl is enlisted by a a talking purple backpack and a red-booted monkey to aid in a whimsical war against drugs at the border area between the u.s. and mexico

I liked how they set up the kid as a fighter and bully, making her more complicated than just an heiress. I'd put these two closer to the Greengrass Bourne movies than boilerplate, but this is a genre where great actors and quality camerawork, editing, sound make me forgive a lot.

xpost - hahaha

the character of the kid who wants to become a sicario is pretty bad. he is a little wary about getting into the gang, i *guess* decides to shoot Benicio in order to...save his own life? no, his cousin was ready to help give him a pass on that. so I guess he really wanted to prove himself? but then he bails from the gang a few minutes before they're killed by Brolin and his crew, he's free and...a year later, he's all tatted up and i guess in the gang? i'm all right with characters have weird motivations and change of heart moments, but when they're in a thinly drawn character played by an actor who's a total blank slate...idk.

can't wait for that kid to be robin to benicio's batman in sicario 3: reqiuem

Sicario 3: So You Want to Be a Sicario

how could anyone have an issue with the sequel its mighty shtuff

nb were there meant to be subtitles we didnt get the subtitles

yeah but no tho

Wrote some of this on the general films thread: I saw Sicario 2 a couple nights ago and I thought it was solid but definitely a little less heightened and odd and mysterious than the first one. Stefano Sollima is good, but the film is definitely closer to Clear and Present Danger in terms of craft and style and even story: lots of government intrigue and failed missions leading to abandoning your people behind enemy lines shit.

The drawback w/having no Emily Blunt is you gotta turn your amoral characters w/murky motives into more moral dudes who question their mission. This isn’t necessarily a drawback but it makes this one a bit cleaner and more black and white than the first.

Del Toro and Brolin are both extremely good, the latter actually in particular. The story is just weirdly paced and as I said in the other thread the gov’t intrigue w/Matthew Modine and Catherine Keener just feels boilerplate.

The action scenes are extremely effective and the central ambush is tense.

If you did not like Sicario I’d say avoid this one though.

― omar little, Sunday, 2 December 2018 20:35 (five months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes this is all otm its good

i dislike when ppl watch a movie and when characters in it do things and we arent told dont do these things the assumption is we are being told to do these things ofc the ppl who do this always make clear they understand themselves not to do these things this is a bad way to watch and think about a movie as murky and goodlooking and confusing and stylish as this, which could not much more obviously be an exercise in execution and look

it’s like rambo iii, but bad