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#603 - Sicario
Denis Villeneuve, 2015
An upstanding SWAT team member is asked to join a shadowy black ops team that intends to take down the bosses of a Mexican drug cartel.
As of writing, the only other Villeneuve film I've seen is Prisoners, which delivered a morally grey and miserable story about a child abduction and the physical and psychological toll it takes on various characters. Sicario is also a darkly amoral crime drama, with Villeneuve shifting his attentions to the incredibly dangerous and destructive actions of a Mexican drug cartel. After a brief intertitle explaining the meaning of the title, the film begins with a failed drug bust on a nondescript house in Arizona that turns up nothing but walls filled with vacuum-packed corpses and a shed rigged with explosives. During debriefing, one of the team's members (Emily Blunt) encounters a laid-back specialist (Josh Brolin), who asks her if she'd be interested in joining in on an operation dedicated to taking down the cartel responsible for the corpse-filled house. Blunt idealistically jumps at the opportunity, though her co-worker and close friend (Daniel Kaluuya) is naturally suspicious of the whole affair. Blunt finds herself sharing the same suspicions as she winds up on a private jet headed to Juárez accompanied by Brolin and a mysterious "adviser" (Benicio del Toro). Blunt is quickly caught up in elements way out of her control and simply struggles to keep her head above water as she must face not only the dangers inherent in opposing the cartel but also her incredibly untrustworthy "allies".
Sicario takes a massive international conflict between lawmakers and criminals and becomes more interested in the conflict it raises between the lawmakers themselves. Out of the main players, Blunt and Kaluuya are the closest the film gets to genuinely good characters but even they find themselves increasingly compromised by the entire situation. Blunt definitely proved her capability to pull off a convincing action-heavy role in Edge of Tomorrow, and she makes for a believably competent agent whose skills are tested again and again as the severity of the operation escalates. Of course, it's never truly her ability as an officer that is in question; rather, it is her moral fortitude contrasted against her dedication to the mission. To this end, Kaluuya delivers good support as her sharp-tongued confidant and voice of reason, while Brolin gets in a solid turn as the ethically flexible agent with a smarmy, cavalier attitude towards his mission and the people involved. Del Toro, on the other hand, arguably makes for the film's most striking performance as the mystery man whose laconic nature masks a very complicated individual where the less said about his character, the better. Other supporting characters are solid, especially Victor Garber as Blunt's weary superior and Jeffrey Donovan as an operative who seems to be the polar opposite of the principled, charming ex-spy he played on Burn Notice (to the point where realising it was him was definitely a big surprise).
Big surprises are all over the place as Sicario works through a narrative that covers a war of attrition. There is the occasional sequence of high-stakes suspense (such as one scene taking place at a border-control checkpoint) but scenes like this are not played for genuine thrills. The film paces out its twists reasonably well, but never feels like it's overly dependent on their capacity to shock. If anything, the film is more concerned with anything but the potentially exciting action sequences. The interplay between characters is definitely fascinating, with the film's most intense moments coming about less through scenes involving gunfights and explosions and more through wondering how interactions between different characters will play out. To this end, the film does a good job balancing ethics against pragmatism for the most part; of course, it still makes Blunt and Kaluuya the most sympathetic characters in the midst of all this, though it has to in order to make the film's events have a significant resonance. To this end, it even goes to the trouble of developing one seemingly minor character apropos of nothing, which is a rather effective technique in the long run. The skill on display extends to the techniques, with Villeneuve once again collaborating with Prisoners cinematographer Roger Deakins. Deakins' instantly-recognisable high-contrast approach works wonders, especially in one sequence that takes place during a sequence where the American operatives must wear night-vision goggles. The music is infrequent and minimalist, with the most notable instances involving steadily crescendoing drones that play out in the lead-up to violence but not during it. Though these sounds are simple, they get the job done.
Sicario does a solid job of exploring the War on Drugs less as a black-and-white conflict so much as a black-and-grey one. It provides solid characterisation to the unlikeliest of individuals and makes sure to anchor its story to an appropriately sympathetic protagonist whose seemingly bland heroism is challenged time and time again. Almost every other character dances on the fine line between villain and anti-hero and manages to make the film quite unpredictable as a result. Of course, this is the good kind of unpredictability where it becomes less about anticipating sudden jumps and more about wondering exactly where the story is going to go next, especially when it comes to wondering if the story will go exactly where it seems to be going. The techniques involved are good ones, whether it's Deakins' impressively formal aesthetics or the groaning music that works wonders when it comes to heightening the film's already-considerable levels of intensity. This is easily one of the best films of 2015 so far and deserves recognition as such.
Denis Villeneuve, 2015
An upstanding SWAT team member is asked to join a shadowy black ops team that intends to take down the bosses of a Mexican drug cartel.
As of writing, the only other Villeneuve film I've seen is Prisoners, which delivered a morally grey and miserable story about a child abduction and the physical and psychological toll it takes on various characters. Sicario is also a darkly amoral crime drama, with Villeneuve shifting his attentions to the incredibly dangerous and destructive actions of a Mexican drug cartel. After a brief intertitle explaining the meaning of the title, the film begins with a failed drug bust on a nondescript house in Arizona that turns up nothing but walls filled with vacuum-packed corpses and a shed rigged with explosives. During debriefing, one of the team's members (Emily Blunt) encounters a laid-back specialist (Josh Brolin), who asks her if she'd be interested in joining in on an operation dedicated to taking down the cartel responsible for the corpse-filled house. Blunt idealistically jumps at the opportunity, though her co-worker and close friend (Daniel Kaluuya) is naturally suspicious of the whole affair. Blunt finds herself sharing the same suspicions as she winds up on a private jet headed to Juárez accompanied by Brolin and a mysterious "adviser" (Benicio del Toro). Blunt is quickly caught up in elements way out of her control and simply struggles to keep her head above water as she must face not only the dangers inherent in opposing the cartel but also her incredibly untrustworthy "allies".
Sicario takes a massive international conflict between lawmakers and criminals and becomes more interested in the conflict it raises between the lawmakers themselves. Out of the main players, Blunt and Kaluuya are the closest the film gets to genuinely good characters but even they find themselves increasingly compromised by the entire situation. Blunt definitely proved her capability to pull off a convincing action-heavy role in Edge of Tomorrow, and she makes for a believably competent agent whose skills are tested again and again as the severity of the operation escalates. Of course, it's never truly her ability as an officer that is in question; rather, it is her moral fortitude contrasted against her dedication to the mission. To this end, Kaluuya delivers good support as her sharp-tongued confidant and voice of reason, while Brolin gets in a solid turn as the ethically flexible agent with a smarmy, cavalier attitude towards his mission and the people involved. Del Toro, on the other hand, arguably makes for the film's most striking performance as the mystery man whose laconic nature masks a very complicated individual where the less said about his character, the better. Other supporting characters are solid, especially Victor Garber as Blunt's weary superior and Jeffrey Donovan as an operative who seems to be the polar opposite of the principled, charming ex-spy he played on Burn Notice (to the point where realising it was him was definitely a big surprise).
Big surprises are all over the place as Sicario works through a narrative that covers a war of attrition. There is the occasional sequence of high-stakes suspense (such as one scene taking place at a border-control checkpoint) but scenes like this are not played for genuine thrills. The film paces out its twists reasonably well, but never feels like it's overly dependent on their capacity to shock. If anything, the film is more concerned with anything but the potentially exciting action sequences. The interplay between characters is definitely fascinating, with the film's most intense moments coming about less through scenes involving gunfights and explosions and more through wondering how interactions between different characters will play out. To this end, the film does a good job balancing ethics against pragmatism for the most part; of course, it still makes Blunt and Kaluuya the most sympathetic characters in the midst of all this, though it has to in order to make the film's events have a significant resonance. To this end, it even goes to the trouble of developing one seemingly minor character apropos of nothing, which is a rather effective technique in the long run. The skill on display extends to the techniques, with Villeneuve once again collaborating with Prisoners cinematographer Roger Deakins. Deakins' instantly-recognisable high-contrast approach works wonders, especially in one sequence that takes place during a sequence where the American operatives must wear night-vision goggles. The music is infrequent and minimalist, with the most notable instances involving steadily crescendoing drones that play out in the lead-up to violence but not during it. Though these sounds are simple, they get the job done.
Sicario does a solid job of exploring the War on Drugs less as a black-and-white conflict so much as a black-and-grey one. It provides solid characterisation to the unlikeliest of individuals and makes sure to anchor its story to an appropriately sympathetic protagonist whose seemingly bland heroism is challenged time and time again. Almost every other character dances on the fine line between villain and anti-hero and manages to make the film quite unpredictable as a result. Of course, this is the good kind of unpredictability where it becomes less about anticipating sudden jumps and more about wondering exactly where the story is going to go next, especially when it comes to wondering if the story will go exactly where it seems to be going. The techniques involved are good ones, whether it's Deakins' impressively formal aesthetics or the groaning music that works wonders when it comes to heightening the film's already-considerable levels of intensity. This is easily one of the best films of 2015 so far and deserves recognition as such.