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

nobody ever mentions that they could just, y'know, legalize it

i mean, no one in this movie suggests legalization bc little to no people in that type of law enforcement believe in it publicly. perhaps for some that's only because holding such a position in public is political suicide in the U.S., but whatever the reason, that is not a thing that's on the table. of all the things that are inarguably and arguably implausible about sicario, its lack of a public policy debate about the pros and cons of legalization is not one of them.

The actual worst part of this movie is it's blind subscription to the "Torture: It ALWAYS works" theory of law enforcement.

x-post: I do realize that, but the film fucks up the plausibility anyhow... And this is not about realism, this is about the argument of the film being stupid, and ways that would make it less stupid. If not a law-member, then perhaps giving the word to someone other than the police at some point. As it is, the film follows narrow-minded people running around in circles and doing stupid violent shit, but I still get the feeling that it's meant to be 'important' somehow.

Like, it seems to me the point of the film is 'you can't imagine what we have to do to solve this problem!' and my reaction is 'um, actually I kinda can...' So, y'know, it's a failure of subject matter, probably.

lol

Give me the tools and I'll Danish the job

He. Drugs are illegal in Denmark as well, though.

I stand by the pun

I'm trying to work the Veep croissant gif in here somehow, but I'm not sure if it works.

The actual worst part of this movie is it's blind subscription to the "Torture: It ALWAYS works" theory of law enforcement.

Torture is used as a deus ex machina by lazy scriptwriters, because it is hard to think of a realistic way to effect the timely acquisition of secret information. It doesn't matter that torture doesn't work very well in real life so long as the plot moves briskly and audiences are carried along.

this is otm, ultimately the federal forces in this movie are basically 80s action movie heroes.

you saw a very different movie than i did. overall it was not very good, but the way the actors arced their performances from "roguish loose cannon" to "creepy, amoral murderer" is really going to stick with me. think of the Delta platoon leader saying rapey shit to one of the protagonists ("just lie back and let it happen" ... not the first time he's said that). or think of how differently the border crossing ambush goes if this is actually an 80s action movie. i thought this movie was super disturbing.

I think, tbf, you were actually watching a different movie

i wish i'd seen your movie, the one i saw depressed the hell out of me

i loved Enemy, tis wasnt as good but i got horny every time emily blunt got roughed up

villeneueve doesnt remind me of van sant, i dont see him pretentious at all, he just wants to make cool exciting thrillers with pizzazz, and he does that like every time... he's not trying to place himself in a lineage w/bela tarr and alan clarke

A banal idea executed with style and shrewd choices, worn down by the didactic script.

Ya

I'm pretty much with Edelstein on this:
http://www.vulture.com/2015/09/movie-review-sicario.html

Only trouble with Brolin is he kept reminding me of Dennis Miller.

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