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Overall, I enjoyed the film. It's a good one. However, while the performances of the individual actors were all very solid, with the exception of Benicio del Toro who was excellent, the characters sorely lacked depth. They felt somewhat like caricatures - the morally conflicted by-the-books cop, her reluctant best friend, the revenge seeker, and the man who is ready to break the rules to get the men he's after. They offered little beyond that. Tense, well-directed, well-acted film that is overall an enjoyable experience. But it lacked a few elements to separate it as a great film for me.
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Oct 4, 2015 16:15
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Cross-Section posted:Audience I saw it with had similar reactions, with a few added Interesting to hear that others saw the movie with lovely audiences. I had chalked the laughing and applauding and "oh poo poo!"-ing in my screening up to NYC audiences being universally terrible.
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Oct 4, 2015 16:21
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moments like
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Terrorist Fistbump posted:Interesting to hear that others saw the movie with lovely audiences. I had chalked the laughing and applauding and "oh poo poo!"-ing in my screening up to NYC audiences being universally terrible. I think a lot of people have the nervous reaction. I heard "waterboardin time!" at a PDX screening, most likely a sarcastic response to what many liberals in this region recognize as institutional wrongdoing in the military. But I'm pretty sure it's almost a universal human trait to respond to horror with humor. I've found this to be true during time in both Africa and India...but in Mexico, Central, and South America (places I haven't been) it seems to be even more the case, that there is a dark, maybe even fatalistic humor hovering over entire populations. Malcolm Lowry wrote a lot about this fatalism in Under the Volcano, by the way, and made many comments about Mexico being both beloved home and hell to him, though he was a foreigner basically drinking himself to death.  Such a good book.There's a line in the film where someone says the freeway shootout will be in the news all over the country and someone else responds with the equivalent of "are you kidding me, no one will even hear about this in El Paso." One might get the impression that the statement implies a situation of media control in some sense, in a world where the NSA plants news articles abroad to be picked up domestically, but I think it speaks equally to the fact that Americans are either unaware or in denial of (more likely) current events around the world. Through the act of denial we are insulated and unprepared to deal with the discomfort of slave-labor working conditions, human trafficking, disease, food shortage, forced migration of populations, and other atrocities that are a result of our way of life. Those things happen predominantly in red-zones, which make us nervous to look at. BeanpolePeckerwood fucked around with this message at 18:00 on Oct 4, 2015 |
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Oct 4, 2015 17:54
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I also took that 'no-one will hear about this' line as a follow-up to the chat about the hanging bodies. The media will be told and will tell that some violent mexican criminals attacked heroic americans and lost, if they're told anything at all. It will be positioned as a righteous act, and therefore there's nothing to write about; Blunt knows that they provoked it, that they shot first, that they were in control and that the story isn't that simple but no-one else will. It ties into the line that Brolin has when she asks what they're going to Juarez to do and he says 'overreact' or somesuch. It's not that the cartel aren't a threat (anyone with a gun and malintent is, as we know) just that like al-quida, the mujahadeen, ISIS, they aren't actually on the scale of a national invasion but that's the scale of the response. It's important that they don't take SWAT with them on these missions but Delta Force. It's a clear appropriation of War on Terror tactics to the War on Drugs; Medellin is no different than democratically installing a dictator. If you're comfortablt with the War on Terror, if you cheered in Zero Dark Thirty, then I can see why you would here as well. There is a whole hell of a lot going on in the movie, it just skims past so much of it, leaving you to decide your opinion, then being blunt as hell at others. Like that score, which could so easily have been ridiculous but worked so well with his style.
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Oct 4, 2015 23:29
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Matt says they're being sent to "dramatically overreact," yeah. Again it comes back to "it's brilliant what they do." The bodies on the bridge function in a number of ways, first being that they make people feel complicit. The incredible desecration makes people feel that the victims must've been involved in some way, or in no uncertain terms that they deserved it. Another is that it stokes outrage. It makes it possible to authorize any and all means available to preempt these acts, meaning a permanent state of fear warrants us to surrender engagement with reality to allow secretive actors to operate with no oversight. This is one of the most succinct articulations of the "deep state" on film I've probably ever seen that wasn't cockamamie conspiracy stuff.
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Oct 4, 2015 23:50
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Viginti posted:I also took that 'no-one will hear about this' line as a follow-up to the chat about the hanging bodies. The media will be told and will tell that some violent mexican criminals attacked heroic americans and lost, if they're told anything at all. It will be positioned as a righteous act, and therefore there's nothing to write about; Blunt knows that they provoked it, that they shot first, that they were in control and that the story isn't that simple but no-one else will. I can't remember what thread it was where someone posted information showing that the war on drugs theater of operations actually uses a majority of the financial/legal resources appropriated for the war on terror. They might as well be referred to as subsections of a greater campaign for American hegemony.
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Oct 5, 2015 00:28
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Cross-Section posted:Audience I saw it with had similar reactions, with a few added Captain Phillips feeds those weird reactions, at least. The music goes up and the camerawork gets frantic every time a black person raises their voice, it's uncanny.
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Oct 5, 2015 06:58
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Stuff like that makes me wonder how audiences will react to that Michael Bay Benghazi movie.
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Oct 5, 2015 09:22
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Matt says they're being sent to "dramatically overreact," yeah. I took a class about the interplay of politics and drug trade in Latin America (primarily Mexico and Colombia) a few years ago with a professor who grew up in and did extensive fieldwork in Colombia, and the Juarez scenes were giving me chills because of how closely they matched how she described the systems that larger cartels establish.
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Oct 5, 2015 18:27
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Admittedly, I was so tense at that point that I straight laughed at Alejandro giving a guy an aggressive wet* willie. *I did not actually see him wet the willie. Seemed less like torture and more like an older brother loving with him. "Tell us what you know, and stop hitting yourself."
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Oct 5, 2015 19:39
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Terrorist Fistbump posted:The overall arc of the film is Kate descending -- literally at points -- into a world where the above ideology is dominant and turning from an empowered agent for good into a helpless pawn as she descends. Agreed, she ended up doing their bidding in the end in the same way that the foot soldiers who get massacred by the delta force guys, or the guy driving the car full of drugs did. Once she was in that world and did not take any of her numerous chances to walk away, she much like the foot soldiers and drug runners was no longer in a position to tell them no.
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Oct 5, 2015 20:55
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Just saw this. Liked it a lot. Appreciated how little plot there was. Forgot the dude from episode 2 of Black Mirror was in it, he was really very good. Emily Blunt continues to be awesome in everything i see her in (i wish My Summer of Love was on blu ray). Definitely agree with the person who said this is the successor to Zero Dark Thirty, in some ways it felt like a direct response to that movie. Great ending. On my Villeneuve rankings i put it as much better than Prisoners and maybe a smidge better than Incendies but not as good as Enemy. SirMonkeyButt posted:Admittedly, I was so tense at that point that I straight laughed at Alejandro giving a guy an aggressive wet* willie. Alejandro definitely wet the willie.
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Oct 6, 2015 03:02
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Oh gently caress, that was the guy from One Million Merits! I could not place him at all.
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Oct 6, 2015 03:41
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Uncle Boogeyman posted:
I agree with your ranking, though it's tied with Enemy for me. Also, less of a wet willie and more of an ear drum rape, fyi.
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Oct 6, 2015 03:58
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Villeneuve is so, so good at creating instantly iconic characters.
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Oct 7, 2015 19:58
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Oh gently caress, that was the guy from One Million Merits! I could not place him at all. *15
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Oct 7, 2015 20:26
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A shame that this is bombing at the U.S. Box Office; but then again releasing this alongside The Martian was criminally stupid.
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Oct 8, 2015 06:46
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Still not sure what I think of this movie, it wasn't bad but I wouldn't recommend it to people as a good movie on its own merits. If you like certain actors or the drug war or whatever sure, but straight up as a good movie not really. The weirdest thing though is I can't think of anything specific I'd like to have seen done better, all the pieces fit so well that any small change I can think of would either really unbalance it or totally change it into something it's not. Comparing it to other Villeneuve movies I've seen I liked that it was more subtle and less in your face than Prisoners, lack of a fulfilling arc for Blunt was very frustrating though and what was there was too subtle for me to really care about. Comparing to Enemy it's just weaker over all, less compelling characters, weaker climax and incredibly subdued ending. I like what I think he was going for, a more realistic showing of the drug war without being jingoistic and derivative while also trying to leave it a bit open for interpretation but it just didn't work for me at all, too subtle and not enough substance.
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Oct 8, 2015 11:18
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Immortan posted:A shame that this is bombing at the U.S. Box Office; but then again releasing this alongside The Martian was criminally stupid. I'd hardly call a $17m gross on a $30m budget a bomb after two weeks in limited and one week in wide release. For an R-rated movie that's pretty good.
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Oct 8, 2015 15:34
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Terrorist Fistbump posted:I'd hardly call a $17m gross on a $30m budget a bomb after two weeks in limited and one week in wide release. For an R-rated movie that's pretty good. This movie had a high, high per-theater average. It's going to do well with a rolling release. Also, if it gets nominated, it has the potential for a second release.
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Oct 8, 2015 18:23
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Terrorist Fistbump posted:I'd hardly call a $17m gross on a $30m budget a bomb after two weeks in limited and one week in wide release. For an R-rated movie that's pretty good. This movie had a high, high per-theater average. It's going to do well with a rolling release. Also, if it gets nominated, it has the potential for a second release.
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Oct 8, 2015 18:32
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Woden posted:I like what I think he was going for, a more realistic showing of the drug war without being jingoistic and derivative while also trying to leave it a bit open for interpretation but it just didn't work for me at all, too subtle and not enough substance. The script refuses to take a stand on how it feels about what's going on, which would be fine except that Blunt's character also fluctuates in how she feels (she objects to and then goes along on at least three separate missions, and then impotently points the gun at Alejandro at the end), which keeps the audience from having an identifiable human anchor in the story. And the script's single attempt at having a human character (Silvio, the Mexican cop) is spoiled because he is ultimately just a tool to make the audience feel a certain way about Alejandro in the highway scene. Talking about Sicario after the fact makes it sound like it has a much better script than it actually does because a lot of the characters/scenarios work as metaphors for America's attitudes about US/Mexico border relations but are not very believable on-screen. Luckily Villeneuve is a good enough director and the cast are all good enough actors to compensate for this.
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Oct 8, 2015 20:26
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What is specifically unidentifiable about her?
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Oct 8, 2015 20:37
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centaurtainment posted:The script refuses to take a stand on how it feels about what's going on, which would be fine except that Blunt's character also fluctuates in how she feels (she objects to and then goes along on at least three separate missions, and then impotently points the gun at Alejandro at the end), which keeps the audience from having an identifiable human anchor in the story. And the script's single attempt at having a human character (Silvio, the Mexican cop) is spoiled because he is ultimately just a tool to make the audience feel a certain way about Alejandro in the highway scene. Talking about Sicario after the fact makes it sound like it has a much better script than it actually does because a lot of the characters/scenarios work as metaphors for America's attitudes about US/Mexico border relations but are not very believable on-screen. Silvio actually serves as more of a connection to the invisible victims of violence in Mexico: women, children. There are a ton of allusions to this, and if you're familiar with Villanueve's style then this is easy to see. Silvio is also an equivalent to Kate, as both are swallowed by an incomprehensible system that overpowers their better judgement. At the beginning of the film Kate worked for the FBI and was able to maintain a rigid, if naive, set of principles. By the end of the film she signs the document that violates those principles and places herself irrevocably beneath the will of the American cartel.
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Oct 9, 2015 03:23
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Throwing this in here for fun: A very well-written pan of the film that I pretty much disagree with 99% of. http://reverseshot.org/reviews/entry/2098/sicario
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Oct 9, 2015 03:39
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justlikedunkirk posted:Throwing this in here for fun: A very well-written pan of the film that I pretty much disagree with 99% of. Lotta buzzwords flying around in there. Funny, he thinks that the film is saying "the ends justify the means." I got the exact opposite impression, with zero ambiguity.
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Oct 9, 2015 04:36
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second-hand smegma posted:Lotta buzzwords flying around in there.
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Oct 9, 2015 04:41
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Cross-Section posted:Audience I saw it with had similar reactions, with a few added I was doing that, along with covering my eyes and holding onto my head like I was about to fall off a skyscraper or my brain about to be blown out. I saw plenty of other people giggling or like me telling her to loving sign the thing not to die.
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Oct 9, 2015 05:57
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second-hand smegma posted:Silvio actually serves as more of a connection to the invisible victims of violence in Mexico: women, children. There are a ton of allusions to this, and if you're familiar with Villanueve's style then this is easy to see. centaurtainment posted:Talking about Sicario after the fact makes it sound like it has a much better script than it actually does because a lot of the characters/scenarios work as metaphors for America's attitudes about US/Mexico border relations but are not very believable on-screen.
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Oct 9, 2015 07:06
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justlikedunkirk posted:Throwing this in here for fun: A very well-written pan of the film that I pretty much disagree with 99% of. For funsies, here's Mike D'Angelo's response. http://letterboxd.com/gemko/film/sicario-2015/1/
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Oct 9, 2015 09:24
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Again, what's this even mean? What's the film missing other than expository dialog?
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Oct 9, 2015 12:50
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Again, what's this even mean? What's the film missing other than expository dialog? Showing Silvio eat breakfast four times with his family and like, wink at his wife when she sees him add booze to his coffee, does not a character make. We know nothing about his motivations, all we know is that it seems like he loves his son. Then the first time we see him outside of that very basic setting is the scene at the end of the tunnel, at which point he simply becomes a human shield for Alejandro, who kills him for basically nothing. That arc works very nicely if you're writing an essay cuz you can make the same claim that you did, that he represents the unseen victims blah blah blah, but that doesn't make his character in the movie strong or compelling. You don't need dialogue, but why not show him playing some soccer with his kid while dressed as a cop, or him going to the game with his family (like at the end, but with him?). Keeping us in the house, when he's waking up, for multiple scenes, was a waste of time, and his role in the story was too small to justify those repetitious scenes. Or focus on the wife if you're gonna stay inside the house. She could have been the character you're talking about, but since she barely interacts with Silvio or his kid she's relegated to the sidelines until her last scene at the soccer match (no pun intended). I know I'm taking the negative view in this thread but I really liked this movie. It's one of the best this year, but it falls short of greatness for some very basic and fixable reasons, all of which have to do with the characters either being weather-worn cliches (Alejandro) or inconsistent in their behavior (Macer). The movie is under-written to its own detriment, although since you're using the term "expository dialogue" pejoratively I'm not going to go too far down that road.
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Oct 9, 2015 16:00
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centaurtainment posted:Showing Silvio eat breakfast four times with his family and like, wink at his wife when she sees him add booze to his coffee, does not a character make. We know nothing about his motivations, all we know is that it seems like he loves his son. Then the first time we see him outside of that very basic setting is the scene at the end of the tunnel, at which point he simply becomes a human shield for Alejandro, who kills him for basically nothing. That was my post, actually. Man, is the film too blunt or too subtle? I can't decide! VVVVVVVVVVV and yet, it's making a whole lot of other points simultaneously. BeanpolePeckerwood fucked around with this message at 16:24 on Oct 9, 2015 |
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Oct 9, 2015 16:19
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second-hand smegma posted:That was my post, actually. Man, is the film too blunt or too subtle? I can't decide! It's making a blunt point (that US/Mexico border relations are hosed up) in a subtle way. There's a lot going on that the audience barely has access to but it all serves the same message. It works, just not flawlessly.
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Oct 9, 2015 16:22
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Finally saw this last night. Really, really liked it. A lot of people, both in this thread in the general review-o-sphere of the internet, have talked about a lot of things I liked, so I'm going to mention something else that it made me think about : For all the depth of its story, Sicario's plot is very straightforward and basic. This movie, in some ways, felt like a deconstruction of the classic american action film. Think 80s/90s action films. But unlike those films, this one doesn't characterize the violence of the action scenes as heroic or "good". In the "traditional" action film, the audience is given examples of what makes the bad guys evil, and there's never any doubt that they are outmatched by the good guys. When Schwarzenegger or Stallone encounters some bad guys and guns them down, we're supposed to cheer because the good guy was better than the bad guys and he won. Action films often have this dissonance between the bad guy being evil because he kills a lot of people, and the good guy being in the clear because he only kills bad guys. I felt like Sicario looked at this and said "You want a story about the kind of people who hunt down bad guys? here you go". Now obviously, Sicario has a lot more going on than that, but as someone who has seen lots of action movie, both the upbeat and the gritty, I don't think I've ever seen a movie that was this nihilistic about killing with military efficiency. Our multimedia is super-saturated with this parapmilitary tactical idea of action. It's huge right now. Call of Duty, Counter Stike, Metal Gear Solid, Tom Clancy franchises... the sudden prominence of "Center Axis Relock" as a fad in action films betrays the public attention to "tacticool".
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Oct 9, 2015 17:17
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Well, this actually released in central Michigan and my dad went to see it. He said the tension almost gave him a heart attack. His little town cineplex never gets anything but the most mainstream movies, and with that in mind I'm making the assertion that Sicario is about as subversive as film can get right now if it's going to play on 2500 screens. Villanueve definitely must have some people that believe in him.
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Oct 10, 2015 02:30
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Snak posted:Now obviously, Sicario has a lot more going on than that, but as someone who has seen lots of action movie, both the upbeat and the gritty, I don't think I've ever seen a movie that was this nihilistic about killing with military efficiency. I liked how the film has an unambiguously ambivalent tone with respect to the violence depicted. The continuous violence and power structure behind the Cartels gradually made Mercer become morally jaded. These were both nice surprises from an action movie. I still do not see how the comparisons to Zero Dark Thirty are valid. This movie was essentially depicting what ‘is’ rather than what ‘ought’ to be. Zero Dark Thirty was pretty blatant in its pro-American bias; Sicario, not so much. There was even a scene where a DoD advisor (Matt Graver) was admiring the organization and tactics of the very Cartels he was fighting.
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Oct 10, 2015 03:36
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Immortan posted:I liked how the film has an unambiguously ambivalent tone with respect to the violence depicted. The continuous violence and power structure behind the Cartels gradually made Mercer become morally jaded. These were both nice surprises from an action movie. I still do not see how the comparisons to Zero Dark Thirty are valid. This movie was essentially depicting what ‘is’ rather than what ‘ought’ to be. Zero Dark Thirty was pretty blatant in its pro-American bias; Sicario, not so much. There was even a scene where a DoD advisor (Matt Graver) was admiring the organization and tactics of the very Cartels he was fighting.
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Oct 10, 2015 03:42
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Immortan posted:I still do not see how the comparisons to Zero Dark Thirty are valid. They are both films about clandestine operations carried out by American intelligence agencies in other countries. Both films have female leads whose attitudes are affected when they are exposed to the moral ambiguity of intelligence gathering (in Zero Dark Thirty Maya becomes hardened to these methods, while Macer is more ambivalent in Sicario). Both films address their chosen current event topic with a clear agenda and some degree of verisimilitude, eg, both are very realistic. Both films feature lengthy scenes where a team of special forces operators carry out a raid in a desert. poo poo, both films end with their respective targets getting a bullet in the head. Sicario is the evil twin of Zero Dark Thirty, or rather, it is Zero Dark Thirty stripped of all the propaganda and positive, "Let's get him, team!" vibes. All that you're left with is ambiguity and murder. Personally, I think The Hurt Locker struck the perfect balance between the two, in that it never glorified the war in Iraq yet still allowed for moments of personal triumph and heartbreak.
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Oct 10, 2015 05:00
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I'm shocked to learn how many people took a "Rah Rah America" message away from fuckin' ZD30.
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Oct 10, 2015 20:09
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