Sicario (15.)
Directed by Denis Villeneuve.
Starring Emily Blunt, Josh Brolin, Benecio Del Toro, Daniel Kalyuua, Victor Garber and John Bernthal. 121 mins.
The scale and insane brutality of the Mexican Drug Cartels means that the US has a giant hornet's nest dangling from its southern border. It doesn't matter if you poke it or ignore it – it is ferociously agitated either way, with an IS appetite for destruction. It has been alluded to in some of America's best TV series – The Shield, Breaking Bad – but the movies have largely left it alone, unless you count Fast & Furious 4. Sicario takes it on, and takes it on unflinchingly and most impressively, but not quite head on. It is still largely something that is happening over there.
Maybe it is little too close to home for Hollywood, or maybe they haven’t quite figured out what genre to fit it into. Sicario offers an Idealism Lost narrative. Emily Blunt is an FBI agent who finds herself attached to a murkily defined high level operation against the cartels, headed up by Brolin and Del Toro. Right from the off, when Brolin interviews her in flip flops, you know it isn’t going to end well. Blunt is the audience surrogate, her role is to be left in the dark. Like us she is two or three steps behind what is really going on and Brolin and Del Toro are two performers adept at keeping you out of the loop.
To be fair, BDT is actually a lot less mumblefish than usual, but still thoroughly opaque. Brolin smirks and chortles his way through the film, a great study in American complacency. He’s cynical enough to know that this war on drugs can’t be won, yet American enough to feel sure that it, or maybe just he, is going to come out on top anyway.
French Canadian Villeneuve (Prisoners, Enemy,) is rapidly but almost imperceptibly ascending towards the ranks of the world's top directors. So much so that it was actually a relief when Ridley Scott announced he was passing over the much resisted Blade Runner sequel to him. However you feel about his films, you can’t deny that his ability to wring the most from any situation or scene is exemplary. And unlike most big name director, he doesn't have a set book of plays that he runs through in every film. He has a great eye for eerie, the telling camera angle and when he bring the hammer down the level of dread and suspense are ferocious. There is a bravura sequence early on where a convoy of cars drive in and out of Mexico over the border to pick up a prisoner, switching between sweeping aerial shots and cramped car interiors. Aided by a superbly menacing score by Johann Johannsson and the mesmerizing cinematography of Roger Deakins, it is masterly piece of sustained suspense. As the convoy of black cars tears through the body strewn, war torn streets of Juarez, just over the border from El Paso, it is like a Presidential visit to hell.
Directed by Denis Villeneuve.
Starring Emily Blunt, Josh Brolin, Benecio Del Toro, Daniel Kalyuua, Victor Garber and John Bernthal. 121 mins.
The scale and insane brutality of the Mexican Drug Cartels means that the US has a giant hornet's nest dangling from its southern border. It doesn't matter if you poke it or ignore it – it is ferociously agitated either way, with an IS appetite for destruction. It has been alluded to in some of America's best TV series – The Shield, Breaking Bad – but the movies have largely left it alone, unless you count Fast & Furious 4. Sicario takes it on, and takes it on unflinchingly and most impressively, but not quite head on. It is still largely something that is happening over there.
Maybe it is little too close to home for Hollywood, or maybe they haven’t quite figured out what genre to fit it into. Sicario offers an Idealism Lost narrative. Emily Blunt is an FBI agent who finds herself attached to a murkily defined high level operation against the cartels, headed up by Brolin and Del Toro. Right from the off, when Brolin interviews her in flip flops, you know it isn’t going to end well. Blunt is the audience surrogate, her role is to be left in the dark. Like us she is two or three steps behind what is really going on and Brolin and Del Toro are two performers adept at keeping you out of the loop.
To be fair, BDT is actually a lot less mumblefish than usual, but still thoroughly opaque. Brolin smirks and chortles his way through the film, a great study in American complacency. He’s cynical enough to know that this war on drugs can’t be won, yet American enough to feel sure that it, or maybe just he, is going to come out on top anyway.
French Canadian Villeneuve (Prisoners, Enemy,) is rapidly but almost imperceptibly ascending towards the ranks of the world's top directors. So much so that it was actually a relief when Ridley Scott announced he was passing over the much resisted Blade Runner sequel to him. However you feel about his films, you can’t deny that his ability to wring the most from any situation or scene is exemplary. And unlike most big name director, he doesn't have a set book of plays that he runs through in every film. He has a great eye for eerie, the telling camera angle and when he bring the hammer down the level of dread and suspense are ferocious. There is a bravura sequence early on where a convoy of cars drive in and out of Mexico over the border to pick up a prisoner, switching between sweeping aerial shots and cramped car interiors. Aided by a superbly menacing score by Johann Johannsson and the mesmerizing cinematography of Roger Deakins, it is masterly piece of sustained suspense. As the convoy of black cars tears through the body strewn, war torn streets of Juarez, just over the border from El Paso, it is like a Presidential visit to hell.
