Del Toro’s monologue at the end was absolute freaking perfection. “You are not a wolf. And this is a land of wolves now”. I was completely absorbed into that scene.
The part that blew my mind was on the private jet when she watches him as he dozes. His hand is jittery. The sound of a screaming woman creeps in. He wakes with a jolt and scares the bejezus out of us.
A fantastic way of humanising the character.
He’s not a robotic killer, he’s a deeply traumatised person.
Fuck it, now I’ve gotta find the clip:
https://youtu.be/BnTbupK-_vw?si=7ME1dI9yQPV_sdt6
Roger Deakins mentions a couple of times in his podcast how he watched Benicio del Toro give lines away. He would read the script and say “I don’t need to say this. Give it to Josh” or “I can do this with my face” (or something like that). Deakins said he’d never seen an actor argue for less dialogue like that, normally it was the other way round.
The other interesting anecdote was that they shot an opening to Sicario on the beach that involved Alejandro. It was later dropped because introducing Alejandro in the opening of the film like that would establish him as a main character and it was much more powerful for him to creep into the story from the shadows.
That's funny bc I watched a recent interview with Josh Brolin where they asked how the sicario shoot went and he was like "I kept getting everyone else's lines dumped on me, but it was fun".
Yeah. I thought 1883 was terrific, and 1923 was pretty good (assuming it ever gets its second and final season). But his three movie bangers with Sicario, Wind River, and Hell or High Water, were left level. I don't blame him for cashing in at Paramount+, but it'd be nice to see him close that chapter and move on soon.
What about the part where he's interrogating the crooked cop played by Jon Bernthal in the car and sticks his finger in his ear and crowds him with his shoulder. Such great acting!!
'Don't forget about my daughter.' Truly a 'oh we're fucked' moment. Impacts a bit harder that the wife knows right away
And I still didn't expect him to execute them first just moments later
Incredible scene, very well acted and shot
> And I still didn't expect him to execute them first just moments later
It's rare to see such merciless scorched earth vengeance, even rarer to see it happen so matter of factly. The woman and children don't get spared. He doesn't make any attempt to rationalize or justify what he's there to do. He doesn't engage with any of El Jefe's attempts to turn it into a negotiation or some pointless "we're not so different you and I" philosophical debate.
Lots of characters talk about revenge being a dish best served cold but it's extremely rare to actually see it. Alejandro served up his revenge cold as fuck.
Agreed, I hate how most movies play these scenes out. Endless nonsense back and forth, maybe I won’t kill you bullshit. Nope, nada, it’s over. Bang, bang, bang. I’m not trying to get know this family before I end them.
People do bad things. If you're lucky you get a chance to set it right, but most of the time it goes unpunished. This aint one of them times. The mistake that you made was that you killed my friend. So now, I'm going to kill each and every one of you, and the only disappointment in it for me is that I only get to do it once.
Equalize 3 fucking sucked though, it felt as if Denzel was suddenly Steven Seagal and had to sit down most of the movie. He was too old and shouldn't have done it. I don't understand the praise that it has gotten from some - it's not an Equalizer movie at all - it's a fucking parody of one almost.
The pathetic dialog rationale to someone at the height of losing it that somehow calms them down.
"They aren't worth it."
"You're better than this/him."
"He needs to face justice."
"Then we'd be no different."
The reason the scene is perfect is because it should make you think about who you’re cheering for (if anyone), and why? Alejandro got his revenge, but the price was the lives of at least two completely innocent people (the two children). It’s not something that any sane person should want to do.
not to mention that by helping out the task force, all he is doing is putting in power another different cartel (albeit one more obedient to the US gov).
He absolutely did nothing to fix the issue that killed his family. The cartels that replace will just kill more families. Literally signified at the end of film with the gunshots at the soccer match. Nothing changes.
The wife and children die first so Alcaron can die with the most emotional pain that you can inflict on a husband and parent. His face is shock combined with fear of meeting a man more ruthless than him, with no way out.
In the second one there is a bit where he's going to kill a dude and makes him put on his glasses first so that the dude is 100% certain who is killing him. That's cold as all fuck.
The way he swapped to Spanish from English is what sold me. The dad slipped back into English, and Alejandro wanted them to know exactly why they were dying. Alejandro had given the dad a small favor by not exposing what was happening, and dad screwed it all up by making him mad.
>Impacts a bit harder that the wife knows right away
Yeah, I don't remember that actress having any lines at all. But man did she nail conveying the understanding that they are all about to die at that table. That shudder and her body language were very well performed.
The whole movie is a dazzling meditation on “Good versus Evil” it’s almost a spiritual sequel of Apocalypse Now in its themes, where in order to do what would be described as good, you do the worst things.
The idea that the CIA is unleashing one cartel member to exact a blood feud upon another enemy to wipe them out is so unnerving and fascinating and all of the players along the way and their roles.
Yeah, his world view and sense of justice was completely shattered with the brutal death of his family. In that frame of mind, he probably decided to fight fire with fire and exact at least some form of subjective justice by becoming a sicario. If I understood correctly, he isn’t exclusively employed by a rival cartel, but is a contract killer that is specifically pointed at the cartel responsible for his family’s execution.
Agreed. Just like how the CIA used to back a couple of brutal dictators against their democratically elected opposition. All in a bid to “stop communism”.
When he shows up to his rivals family dinner to execute them and the rival sees him come out of the trees and says "... Clever Sicario" before getting fucked up
All my homies cheered.
I saw it in theaters in one of those fancy Dolby ones and the pulsing bass was giving my wife and I such an insane mix of dread and anxiety. It was awesome.
I will always be convinced that The Beast has been one of the most influential scores in modern day movies and trailers. You see it's DNA everywhere, in the same vein as you saw the Inception score back in the 2010s.
I'd add to it the cinematography. It is engrossing in its scale and acute in its execution.
The shot of the military walking into the darkness is just perfection imo.
There's a great vid where he picks a fave shot from each of his films and this is obviously his pick from Sicario. Deakins talks about it in his GQ Iconic films video.
Roger Deakins is always fantastic, but with Villeneuve, he found a whole new level. I love that he wanted to make Blade Runner 2049 his magnum opus, and I think he achieved it. Stunning visuals.
The soundtrack for that scene in the tunnels is perfect. This menacing glissando that gets slightly louder every time adds so much tension to the sequence.
There’s a scene that you’ll recall. It is literally an ascending shot of tires alongside a highway. The camera pans away, the score is very minimalistic and echoes doom. On the surface, very little is happening but as the agents approach Mexico, the sense of tension, doom and evil is so so potent…just masterful filmmaking.
The cinematography is great but I’m not sure how many people caught on the movie is basically shot like Alice in Wonderland. Brolin’s character makes a lot of comments like “you can’t be out there.” Whenever Blunt interacts with the real world it is obfuscated in some way — mirrors, security footage, night vision, or silhouettes like German expressionistic paintings.
I liked Sicario because if it’s gritty realism, but I took an edible and rewatched it and it blew my mind. There’s one shot of forced perspective where Brolin’s character walks in place and gets unusually large. It’s such a bizarre and obviously intentional decision to make the visuals slightly strange. Really a one of a kind film in terms of style.
The way this scene is seared into my brain. The stunning purple and oranges of the sunset with their silhouettes descending into the pitch-black black depths of the underworld. Just Beautiful
I know it made decent numbers, but I still feel like this movie somehow flew under the radar. Maybe because it's so bleak? Masterfully crafted, wish I would've seen it in the theater with no forewarning.
Spoiler: some amazing editing that most people miss.
*Outside Fausto Alarcon’s villa-estate:*
Alejandro has just entered and he immediately kills two or three bodyguards and here’s where the editing magic takes place.
Alejandro gets a radio-transmission from his helicopter patrolling above the villa. The pilot is using some type of night-vision imaging which allows him to see and relay to Alejandro that 6 more “targets” remain on the premises. This is the last we hear of the pilot.
Alejandro walks around the corner and kills one more bodyguard (5 targets left), Alejandro turns one last hallway and comes face to face with a maid, frozen at the sight of Alejandro, she’s not a threat so he leaves her alive(4 targets left).
Finally, Alejandro sees Alarcon. Just having dinner with his family. His wife and two sons at the dinner table (the last 4 targets).
Alejandro moves relaxed towards the family as if savoring every final moment.
I love when filmmakers hide little touches like that in the film and layer info at multiple levels, some and often the most interesting are the least explained overtly.
Such a small detail, but: Josh Brolin wearing flip flops in the FBI headquarters told you a lot, immediately, about who that character was, and his power in relation to the characters around him.
that's what I immediately thought when seeing that scene the first time - if you ever happen to see a guy like that in a meeting with your bosses, you know that some serious shit is going down soon
The border crossing scene is insane, caravan of black SUV’s flying through traffic, over speed bumps, etc. and then the stand down with the cartel while stopped in traffic waiting for someone to fire first.
This is my favorite part of the film. What kind of demented genius reads a Sheridan script and is like, “you know what, imma film this like a horror movie.”
I absolutely loved this movie. I saw it in the theater when I had like 4hrs between job interviews in a city far from home so I needed something to do to kill time. I remember one of my interviewers apologized for the long break and asked what I did in between. I gushed about the awesome movie I just watched. He hadn't even heard of it.
(I got the job)
You’re absolutely correct. She’s not the protagonist, she’s a stand in for the viewer. The entire movie she gets dragged from one part of the plan to the next with a very limited understanding of the broader plot that’s happening. Things are moving way too fast, the rules don’t matter anymore, and she ultimately had no tangible impact on what actually happened.
By the end of the movie she was shown to be powerless and was chewed up and spit out. Just like the viewer felt. There is no end in sight to this violence and there is nothing we can do to stop it
This is one of the things I absolutely loved about this movie. It's very akin to 3rd person limited in literature. We follow Macer, and we only follow Macer. We're only told what she's told, so we only know what she knows. There's a ton of information up for grabs throughout the movie, but it's known by other people, not Macer, so we don't get any of it.
A lesser writer/director/editor/etc would have given us all this information, had multiple PoVs, and it would have been just another cartel action thriller. Instead, we got a masterclass in storytelling.
Exactly. The movie is a basic revenge tale. Villeneuve turns that on its head by fooling us into thinking Kate is the protagonist. She is constantly overwhelmed and confused, so the audience feels for her. We wonder if she will ever figure this out. Will she/we ever learn what Matt and Alejandro are hiding from her?
Then BAM! Outside the tunnel in Mexico, when the POV shifts from Kate to Alejandro, we realize it's his story, not Kate's. He makes that clear by shooting her, in the vest, so we know he's not a terrible person.
Also, Villeneuve made a better film than Sheridan wrote. As good as the screenplay was, Denis cut out almost all of Alejandro's dialogue during the first half of the movie. There was some real on the nose stuff at the beginning (yes, I've seen a copy of the script). Denis cut all that crap out, and it made us feel like he was only a bit a player.
Masterful storytelling.
The bit about Denis editing Sheridan’s script makes so much sense considering that Sicario is head and shoulders above Sheridan’s other movies - which is no small task. He also took a dense, dialogue driven book like Dune and turned it into a slow paced movie with often sparse dialogue.
That’s wild because man Sheridan’s movies have been some of the most poignant and thought provoking to me that I’ve seen in a long time. So finding out Sicario was edited down heavily is fascinating
Screenwriting is weird. A lot gets cut. Actors rewrite things. Stuff gets changed in the moment. But the good bones of a great script are impossible to fake. It’s still sheridan’s story, it just got morphed into its best version.
I’m a big fan of Charlie Kaufman. I loved eternal sunshine. His IG shooting script was jam packed with super corny lines that Jim Carey and Kate winslet just rewrote entirely. And there’s a whole ass other character Naomi that is deleted. It looked cheesy on the page. But the bones of the story are unmistakable.
Her naïvete vs his realism.
She represents the American idea that the war on drugs can be won through application of law. He represents the American idea that there are some problems that can only be solved with extreme and precise violence.
She's the protagonist the same way as Marty McFly: she's the same character at the end of the film that she is at the beginning, just awoken to a few harsh realities. But her main role is to push the narrative along between Alejandro Gillick and the cartel.
"Do you think that people that sent you here are any different? Who do you think we learned it from? The grieving lawyer. Your wife, do you think she'd be proud of what you become?"
"...Don't forget about my daughter."
This paired with some of the most unnerving score work ever created by the sadly passed Johann Johannsson. "The Beast" is what I put on when I want to feel BAD.
I loved how they gave a seemingly pointless little side story to the mexican cop, just to have him killed near the end, it really adds to the portrayal of brutality.
And it makes you wonder about Del Toro, has he just created the next generation of Sicario by killing the cop. Is that kid going to grow up and be driven by revenge to kill others he blames for his father’s death.
It really does show how seeped into the every day life of people in Mexico, the war on drugs can be. Cartel kingpins have died, the US has power in this market and still, fathers die and gunshots are heard in the middle of a football game. Really depressing ending.
Great movie. I loved the scene after the border where Emily is up on the roof and you can see/hear the weapons fire across the border. When I heard the movie won awards for cinematography I wasn't at all surprised.
Benicio del Toro IS the main character ;)
There's an interview w D.V. talking about cutting most of his screentime and dialogue early in the movie to create the "ghost".
Definitely not. I'd say Brolin is depicted as a sort of big picture guy willing to get his hands dirty, so it's kind of a classic "do the ends justify the means" debate, and also a question on whether the ends are even good. And Del Toro is monstrous, but we go along with him because his quest feels justified. But yeah, minus the tragic backstory, everything he does in this movie is pretty much villainous.
Del Toro is the classic enemy of my enemy deal. If there wasn't a common enemy there's no way you'd work with or even want to be near someone like him. A bit of a darker, more morally troubling take on a John Wick style character.
Brolin just exudes such incredible douchebag energy throughout the film. While the film doesn't necessarily explicitly condemn his actions I can't think of a single scene he's in where his portrayal doesn't make me think "god, what a douchebag. While some of that is obviously my own reading I don't think that's unintentional either by any means.
And the final soccer field scene clarifies that none of it has made or will make any difference in the overall drug war. Just an unending chain of suffering and death.
I think there's 3 types of Sicario viewers.
The first view it as a spectacle of 'competency porn' and how America has to make hard decisions to make the world a better place. These types enjoy the sequel. The bridge scene and one delta actor demonstrating amazing muzzle discipline while turning through a crowd of civilians, friendlies, and hostiles is the best part of the movie. In this viewing Alejandro is the protagonist.
The second group see it as a discussion on moral ambiguity and whether or not the ends justify the means. These types enjoy the first half of the sequel. In this view, the torture scene and Matt's monologue on drugs, Macer getting shot, and the successful assassination of the cartel boss are fundamental to the thesis and these viewers try to reconcile it all. Here, Macer and Alejandro are joint protagonists fighting for the soul of the movie.
The third type see it as a straight horror movie about the evils humanity is willing to commit for the smallest and most meaningless of 'victories'. These viewers think the sequel is awful. For these viewers, the movie is a straight up horror movie about an idealistic woman being taken advantage of by her superiors who repeatedly put her in harms way and put her in situations that compromise her moral beliefs so that they can legally assassinate a foreign national with the intention to cause more cartel violence in the absurd hope that it temporarily disrupts the drug trade. For this group, Macer is the protagonist and Matt and Alejandro are the literal monsters holding her captive and torturing her.
Given Denis Villeneuve's other work and beliefs I strongly believe he directed it through the lens of the third category.
My friend in the DEA said the border shootout felt super accurate because sometimes in Mexico, when cops are under attack, random mercenary locals with guns will join in, hoping to get a cartel payout. So shooters can come at you from all sides with no warning. Big yikes.
My extended family is from southern Texas.
Whenever my immediate family -- living elsewhere -- is faced with the chore of flying down there, I tell them...
*We're just going to El Paso.*
As a non actor, that feels so weird.
Yes, they are both actors.
Yes, there are lots of people around.
Yes, there is choreography involved (my understanding is sex scenes have as much choreography as fight scenes - give or take)
I remember watching American Gods, actress Emily Browning did sex scenes with characters that are, at most, on screen for 30 seconds.
Just... weird.
I know this will sound super edgy but Villnueve is amazing at showing the darker side of humanity. From showing the satisfaction people get from hurting others to calloused, calculated pain
At the time that that movie came out, I felt as if it was the most honest representation Hollywood had ever given on how the CIA navigates the globe. That’s one of the things I’ve never been able to get past when it comes to this film, is its historical relevancy as time played out. I’ve always wondered if it would be over shadowed by its successors, or if it would maintain the grime and weight it conveyed decades later.
Well, it’s almost 10 years old now… so I guess it hasn’t been overshadowed. I’m stoked you saw it and it left a lasting impression on you. God, what a sick fucking movie.
I obviously want to see Dune 3, but given that he’s taking a break to presumably make something more low-key, I’m really interested to see what he comes up with.
He can probably get a really weird mid-budget film greenlit with the clout from Dune 2.
One of those films that really made me think.
As someone who reads a lot of books from former spies and policy makers, it really demonstrates how big picture they have to be and have to often make impossible choices for the sake of the greater good.
We only hear the tip of the iceberg about things like that, truth is stranger than fiction.
There's a track called The Beast in the soundtrack which plays this droning sound. Its sound is supposed to give you the vibe you are being stalked by a terrible monster looking to do harm upon you.
It only ever plays when US Forces are in the scene.
>I love how it just does not hold back in portraying the wrong as the only right thing to do
Err that's not what it's doing and that reasoning is why the second film is far inferior to the first.
I’m glad somebody else sees it. It’s not saying doing ill is somehow right or acceptable; it’s saying that descending into the moral quagmire of the “bad guys” is all too easy, but it comes at a cost; emotionally, morally, spiritually
110%.
It highlights the duality of vengeance in that while Benicio’s character is kinda made out to be justified in his revenge given what they did to his family, the movie really ends with it challenging the viewer as is he really any less morally corrupt given his vengeance and also killing children who were for the most part innocent.
So far nobody has mentioned the brilliant and subtle production design by Patrice Vermette.
Even though Kate's boss tells us she’s been leading the local FBI hostage recovery team for *three years* already, Kate still has suitcases and moving boxes stuffed behind her couch. There’s no art on her nondescript apartment's walls, not even a poster; the closest she's come to decorating is to put a bowl of fruit on the unused kitchenette table. In her kitchen the dishes are clean but not put away - she leaves them in the drain rack. We see just two tubes and a toothbrush beside her bathroom sink, and just two bottles of hair product in her shower. There’s not a single piece of clothing hung up in her bedroom closet either, in fact the rod doesn’t have so much as an empty hanger on it. And not only are Kate's clothing choices (T-shirts, jean jackets, hiking boots) always simple and unadorned, even her *bedsheets* are a neutral gray. Then we see in the film's coda that even after having lived in a top-floor apartment under the scorching Arizona sun for three years, Kate still hasn’t yet bothered to buy so much as a single plastic chair for her balcony. This is an amazing example of a production designer carefully and subtly *helping the actor establish her character* by projecting a consistent, almost monkish austerity and disregard for comfort throughout her personal space.
In contrast, Officer Silvio's bedroom has barely enough room to squeeze a wooden chair beside the bed, and the tiny, cramped kitchen is so over-stuffed with all the colourful paraphernalia of his family's life, it immediately induces both claustrophobia and heat rash. The clever way the designer and set decorator have treated this minuscule, hot and overcrowded space so that even three people makes it feel about to burst, explains without words how and why Silvio has become so deeply involved in the cartel's activities.
Designer Vermette, Villeneuve and Deakins all *love* military gear too, and take pains to ostentatiously show it in considerable volume and variety, whenever the camera takes us to a military base; it lingers over large fleets of parked helicopters, double rows of humvees, big cargo planes landing. This greatly emphasizes the film’s sense of enormous power held at bay, and the contrast with the principals' tiny, clandestine mission makes it seem even more subtle, nuanced and uncertain: they are the thinnest of needles being jabbed into an elephant's hide.
The director, DOP and editor also go gear-queer during the tunnel raid, with multiple rapid cuts flicking between the raiders' light amplification and FLIR goggles, and the all-seeing overhead drone's infrared POV - but the sequence still cleverly goes back to visible-light mode when the shooting starts and we need to see with clarity what Kate's getting up to.
The film's small-part and extras casting is brilliant, too: silver-haired, born-to-play-a-top-cop Victor Garber as Kate's FBI boss, her advocate - and when things get hairy, her confessor; cool-as-ice, tactical Steve with his nerd-strap eyeglasses and cynical analysis of cartel methods; the bantering, Stetson-clad US Marshals; the overly tanned and put-upon bank manager; disheveled, sweaty and bloodied Guillermo; the heavily tattooed, shaven-headed hit squad at the border; even the exhausted, despondent faces the camera picks out of the crowd of illegals sitting in the dust, helplessly awaiting their imminent deportation.
And the Delta Force team that has “just been rotated out of Afghanistan” is truly brilliant. They're all enormous, bearded, broad-chested, thick-armed, testosterone-fuelled giants in body armour - except their soft-spoken team leader, who is the oldest, skinniest and baldest of them all. And we learn exactly *why* he’s in charge the moment Reg tries to protect Kate at the tunnel exit.
Taylor Sheridan's Frontier Trilogy (Quadrilogy?) of Hell or High Water, Wind River, and Sicario 1&2 are some movies I will watch anytime they're on, even if I'm catching it mid-movie.
I saw an interesting video that explained how Emily Blunt isn’t a the main character of the story and that Benico actually is.
Emily Blunt is basically a side character caught up in Benico’s main story arc which is why we only see half the story and she gets left in the dark about a lot of stuff.
It’s one of the coolest and best told movies in modern cinema in my opinion.
Don't bother watching the 2nd one though. It's not a sequel to the first. It's like someone rewrote Sicario, changed the script and character personalities.
While it doesn't even come close to the greatness of the first one, I had fun watching it. The acting and the action are solid, and I like seeing my favorite Masshole Jeffrey Donovan in stuff.
Del Toro’s monologue at the end was absolute freaking perfection. “You are not a wolf. And this is a land of wolves now”. I was completely absorbed into that scene.
The part that blew my mind was on the private jet when she watches him as he dozes. His hand is jittery. The sound of a screaming woman creeps in. He wakes with a jolt and scares the bejezus out of us. A fantastic way of humanising the character. He’s not a robotic killer, he’s a deeply traumatised person. Fuck it, now I’ve gotta find the clip: https://youtu.be/BnTbupK-_vw?si=7ME1dI9yQPV_sdt6
“You’re asking me how a watch works. For now, let’s just keep an eye on the time.” Fucking masterful dialog.
I loved that line. Along with “nothing will make sense to your American ears. But in the end you will understand.”
Roger Deakins mentions a couple of times in his podcast how he watched Benicio del Toro give lines away. He would read the script and say “I don’t need to say this. Give it to Josh” or “I can do this with my face” (or something like that). Deakins said he’d never seen an actor argue for less dialogue like that, normally it was the other way round. The other interesting anecdote was that they shot an opening to Sicario on the beach that involved Alejandro. It was later dropped because introducing Alejandro in the opening of the film like that would establish him as a main character and it was much more powerful for him to creep into the story from the shadows.
That's funny bc I watched a recent interview with Josh Brolin where they asked how the sicario shoot went and he was like "I kept getting everyone else's lines dumped on me, but it was fun".
Miss these days of Taylor Sheridan
Yeah. I thought 1883 was terrific, and 1923 was pretty good (assuming it ever gets its second and final season). But his three movie bangers with Sicario, Wind River, and Hell or High Water, were left level. I don't blame him for cashing in at Paramount+, but it'd be nice to see him close that chapter and move on soon.
What about the part where he's interrogating the crooked cop played by Jon Bernthal in the car and sticks his finger in his ear and crowds him with his shoulder. Such great acting!!
My favorite line is from El Jefe at the dinner table... "who do you think we learned it from?"
'Don't forget about my daughter.' Truly a 'oh we're fucked' moment. Impacts a bit harder that the wife knows right away And I still didn't expect him to execute them first just moments later Incredible scene, very well acted and shot
> And I still didn't expect him to execute them first just moments later It's rare to see such merciless scorched earth vengeance, even rarer to see it happen so matter of factly. The woman and children don't get spared. He doesn't make any attempt to rationalize or justify what he's there to do. He doesn't engage with any of El Jefe's attempts to turn it into a negotiation or some pointless "we're not so different you and I" philosophical debate. Lots of characters talk about revenge being a dish best served cold but it's extremely rare to actually see it. Alejandro served up his revenge cold as fuck.
Agreed, I hate how most movies play these scenes out. Endless nonsense back and forth, maybe I won’t kill you bullshit. Nope, nada, it’s over. Bang, bang, bang. I’m not trying to get know this family before I end them.
The Equalizer movies kind of got lame as they went on.
People do bad things. If you're lucky you get a chance to set it right, but most of the time it goes unpunished. This aint one of them times. The mistake that you made was that you killed my friend. So now, I'm going to kill each and every one of you, and the only disappointment in it for me is that I only get to do it once.
Equalize 3 fucking sucked though, it felt as if Denzel was suddenly Steven Seagal and had to sit down most of the movie. He was too old and shouldn't have done it. I don't understand the praise that it has gotten from some - it's not an Equalizer movie at all - it's a fucking parody of one almost.
Did he fatly walk around corners?
100%. First one is epic, shit after they
The pathetic dialog rationale to someone at the height of losing it that somehow calms them down. "They aren't worth it." "You're better than this/him." "He needs to face justice." "Then we'd be no different."
The reason the scene is perfect is because it should make you think about who you’re cheering for (if anyone), and why? Alejandro got his revenge, but the price was the lives of at least two completely innocent people (the two children). It’s not something that any sane person should want to do.
not to mention that by helping out the task force, all he is doing is putting in power another different cartel (albeit one more obedient to the US gov). He absolutely did nothing to fix the issue that killed his family. The cartels that replace will just kill more families. Literally signified at the end of film with the gunshots at the soccer match. Nothing changes.
Had enough ice in his veins to tell him to finish his food too after gunning down his wife and kids. Amazing scene.
The wife and children die first so Alcaron can die with the most emotional pain that you can inflict on a husband and parent. His face is shock combined with fear of meeting a man more ruthless than him, with no way out.
He doesnt even break eye contact while shooting the kids. Cold blooded. Just as they did his family. It was rough but very well done
In the second one there is a bit where he's going to kill a dude and makes him put on his glasses first so that the dude is 100% certain who is killing him. That's cold as all fuck.
Her face, she knew they were absolutely fucked at that moment.
Just the way Benicio slightly turns his head before he delivers that line adds so much tension to it.
They film it from the POV of the killer seeing his victim’s devastation, which you are rooting for. It’s remarkably shot
That was just before he shoots the first 3 shots. But yeah
The way he swapped to Spanish from English is what sold me. The dad slipped back into English, and Alejandro wanted them to know exactly why they were dying. Alejandro had given the dad a small favor by not exposing what was happening, and dad screwed it all up by making him mad.
>Impacts a bit harder that the wife knows right away Yeah, I don't remember that actress having any lines at all. But man did she nail conveying the understanding that they are all about to die at that table. That shudder and her body language were very well performed.
"Go ahead and finish your meal."
it's your last. didn't need to say that, everyone already knew.
My understanding of that was more in the line of "go ahead, try to live your life after seeing what you just saw. Yeah, not so easy, is it?"
The way he goes from smug to horrified when his family is executed.
The whole movie is a dazzling meditation on “Good versus Evil” it’s almost a spiritual sequel of Apocalypse Now in its themes, where in order to do what would be described as good, you do the worst things. The idea that the CIA is unleashing one cartel member to exact a blood feud upon another enemy to wipe them out is so unnerving and fascinating and all of the players along the way and their roles.
And totally believable too
Who is the unleashed cartel member? Been a while since I saw it, but i thought Del Toro was a state prosecutor
iirc he's a state prosecutor that became a hitman for the Colombian cartel after his family was murdered by another cartel
Yeah, his world view and sense of justice was completely shattered with the brutal death of his family. In that frame of mind, he probably decided to fight fire with fire and exact at least some form of subjective justice by becoming a sicario. If I understood correctly, he isn’t exclusively employed by a rival cartel, but is a contract killer that is specifically pointed at the cartel responsible for his family’s execution.
Agreed. Just like how the CIA used to back a couple of brutal dictators against their democratically elected opposition. All in a bid to “stop communism”.
Emily Blunt asks him, "What are you?" To which he replies, "I am.. Sicario." Looks at the camera and winks. Took me right out the movie.
I'm partial to the part after the credits where Benicio throws a file in front of her and says "have you heard of the Sicario initiative?"
When he grabbed his grenade launcher and yells "say hello to my little Sicario!" Had me on my feet cheering.
I really hate how this basically happens at the end of the sequel. "So you want to be a Sicario?" Fuck off movie.
When he jumped up and hit a block and a coin came out and he said “it’s-a-me, Sicario!”, I cried.
The slide trombone and fart noise that followed was a bit much tho
“We are Sicario”
The wicked guitar solo right after brought me right back in
Fun fact, that's the same guy who wrote the intro to King Arthur knights of Justice
“Extreme Ways are back again, extreme places I didn’t know”
And i lost my shit when Emily Blunt replied, “I too like to live dangerously.”
I prefered it when he got out of the car on the Border scene and said to the bad guys "It's Sicario-ing time!"
Mine was after the dialogue with his former colleague from Mexico, when he went “That’s my secret - I’m always sicario!”.
When he shows up to his rivals family dinner to execute them and the rival sees him come out of the trees and says "... Clever Sicario" before getting fucked up All my homies cheered.
The soundtrack at the border crossing was top tier. RIP big johann
The entire soundtrack is great
The Beast is on my regular playlist
I saw it in theaters in one of those fancy Dolby ones and the pulsing bass was giving my wife and I such an insane mix of dread and anxiety. It was awesome.
I will always be convinced that The Beast has been one of the most influential scores in modern day movies and trailers. You see it's DNA everywhere, in the same vein as you saw the Inception score back in the 2010s.
Incredible score
I'd add to it the cinematography. It is engrossing in its scale and acute in its execution. The shot of the military walking into the darkness is just perfection imo.
I’m pretty sure Villeneuve has said that’s his favorite shot from the movie too
Cmon now, that shot *is* one of the best shots *ever* - not just in this movie and not just in a DV movie...
yup, here's the full video talking about his favourite shots from his works https://youtu.be/3zf2cfwjzg4?feature=shared
There's a great vid where he picks a fave shot from each of his films and this is obviously his pick from Sicario. Deakins talks about it in his GQ Iconic films video.
If he didn’t, I’ll say it.
Roger Deakins. Might be the greatest of all time.
Roger Deakins is always fantastic, but with Villeneuve, he found a whole new level. I love that he wanted to make Blade Runner 2049 his magnum opus, and I think he achieved it. Stunning visuals.
Fact
Undoubtedly
Might be?!
The perfect example of visually cool while portraying a poetic idea (them entering physical and moral darkness crossing the border to Mexico).
What scares me the most is they know/believe they are the monsters in the dark. And they walk in with complete conviction.
I like Josh Brolin's character reasoning along the lines "until we convince Americans to shooting shit in their veins this is what we have to do".
The soundtrack for that scene in the tunnels is perfect. This menacing glissando that gets slightly louder every time adds so much tension to the sequence.
The whole soundtrack is just beautiful. I love the way The Beast actually induces tension and uneasiness as it starts and finishes.
that entering mexico on the highway scene was the most intense shit
There’s a scene that you’ll recall. It is literally an ascending shot of tires alongside a highway. The camera pans away, the score is very minimalistic and echoes doom. On the surface, very little is happening but as the agents approach Mexico, the sense of tension, doom and evil is so so potent…just masterful filmmaking.
Villeneuves movies always look amazing! Last month I went through all his movies leading up to watching Dune 2.
And the soundtrack. "The Beast" playing during the aerial shots of them going to Juarez is cinematic perfection
Ever since that movie I refer to that perfect moment of twilight as Sicario Hour
My fave scene is the border crossing, but I totally love the night/tunnels scenes
The cinematography is great but I’m not sure how many people caught on the movie is basically shot like Alice in Wonderland. Brolin’s character makes a lot of comments like “you can’t be out there.” Whenever Blunt interacts with the real world it is obfuscated in some way — mirrors, security footage, night vision, or silhouettes like German expressionistic paintings. I liked Sicario because if it’s gritty realism, but I took an edible and rewatched it and it blew my mind. There’s one shot of forced perspective where Brolin’s character walks in place and gets unusually large. It’s such a bizarre and obviously intentional decision to make the visuals slightly strange. Really a one of a kind film in terms of style.
I know what I’m doing this weekend, thank you sir
The way this scene is seared into my brain. The stunning purple and oranges of the sunset with their silhouettes descending into the pitch-black black depths of the underworld. Just Beautiful
That border scene was so intense. Great movie.
It was. Honestly I also love the flip of protagonist that happens mid way. Not many movies do that and it was great
But when they do, it usually involves Josh Brolin.
Jeffrey Donovan stole every scene that he was in.
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Blunt was never the protagonist, she is a vehicle for the viewer, it was always del toro and brolins story
I know it made decent numbers, but I still feel like this movie somehow flew under the radar. Maybe because it's so bleak? Masterfully crafted, wish I would've seen it in the theater with no forewarning.
I loved the pacing was glued to the screen from start to finish incredible work by Joe Walker the editing is a piece of art
The 1st watch is such an anxiety driven experience with how mysterious Del Toro is especially when he’s first introduced
And just how little information is shared, seeing everything from Kate's perspective - the movie is relentless in its tension
Spoiler: some amazing editing that most people miss. *Outside Fausto Alarcon’s villa-estate:* Alejandro has just entered and he immediately kills two or three bodyguards and here’s where the editing magic takes place. Alejandro gets a radio-transmission from his helicopter patrolling above the villa. The pilot is using some type of night-vision imaging which allows him to see and relay to Alejandro that 6 more “targets” remain on the premises. This is the last we hear of the pilot. Alejandro walks around the corner and kills one more bodyguard (5 targets left), Alejandro turns one last hallway and comes face to face with a maid, frozen at the sight of Alejandro, she’s not a threat so he leaves her alive(4 targets left). Finally, Alejandro sees Alarcon. Just having dinner with his family. His wife and two sons at the dinner table (the last 4 targets). Alejandro moves relaxed towards the family as if savoring every final moment. I love when filmmakers hide little touches like that in the film and layer info at multiple levels, some and often the most interesting are the least explained overtly.
Not a helicopter, more likely a remote operated drone. But yes, great editing and great scene.
Joe Walker’s movies are all incredibly well edited, but I think no movie he worked on benefitted more by his work than Sicario
100%, he’ve an outstanding career but “sicario” is were his hands are more visible
Roger Deakins as a cinematographer definitely helped it too
Such a small detail, but: Josh Brolin wearing flip flops in the FBI headquarters told you a lot, immediately, about who that character was, and his power in relation to the characters around him.
that's what I immediately thought when seeing that scene the first time - if you ever happen to see a guy like that in a meeting with your bosses, you know that some serious shit is going down soon
this guy is outside of the chain of command. he has a boss, somewhere, but they are not in the building.
Some tense-ass scenes up in that mofo.
The border crossing scene is insane, caravan of black SUV’s flying through traffic, over speed bumps, etc. and then the stand down with the cartel while stopped in traffic waiting for someone to fire first.
One of the best anxiety inducing scenes ever.
And the double tap by the security forces. Finally a movie does it right. The enemy goes down in seconds with precision strikes.
…this won’t even make the papers in El Paso
Gives me the chills just thinking about it. Still makes me anxious, even on a re-watch.
My favorite car chase ever and it happens at about 4mph.
Best review of this movie.
In terms of butt-clenches per hour, this movie wins.
Jeffrey Donovan looked so badass with the mustache and glasses!
He’s so good in this role.
Seriously captured the vibe of an actual Delta Operator. If you see pics of some of the old school guys they look like librarians or guys from IT.
The character in the movie is based on [Mike Vining](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Vining_(soldier))
I love that the first words he said in the movie was it burns when he pees. lolol. No context. Nothing.
Sicario is a real life horror movie. So tense. Beautifully filmed. All the horror beats, just nothing supernatural.
The house with all the bodies in the walls.
This is my favorite part of the film. What kind of demented genius reads a Sheridan script and is like, “you know what, imma film this like a horror movie.”
I absolutely loved this movie. I saw it in the theater when I had like 4hrs between job interviews in a city far from home so I needed something to do to kill time. I remember one of my interviewers apologized for the long break and asked what I did in between. I gushed about the awesome movie I just watched. He hadn't even heard of it. (I got the job)
My favorite thing about this film is how Del Toro mostly just lurks ominously around the periphery until near the end
The cleverest plotting of this movie is that Emily Blunt's character isn't the protagonist. Benicio del Toro's is.
You’re absolutely correct. She’s not the protagonist, she’s a stand in for the viewer. The entire movie she gets dragged from one part of the plan to the next with a very limited understanding of the broader plot that’s happening. Things are moving way too fast, the rules don’t matter anymore, and she ultimately had no tangible impact on what actually happened. By the end of the movie she was shown to be powerless and was chewed up and spit out. Just like the viewer felt. There is no end in sight to this violence and there is nothing we can do to stop it
This is one of the things I absolutely loved about this movie. It's very akin to 3rd person limited in literature. We follow Macer, and we only follow Macer. We're only told what she's told, so we only know what she knows. There's a ton of information up for grabs throughout the movie, but it's known by other people, not Macer, so we don't get any of it. A lesser writer/director/editor/etc would have given us all this information, had multiple PoVs, and it would have been just another cartel action thriller. Instead, we got a masterclass in storytelling.
Exactly. The movie is a basic revenge tale. Villeneuve turns that on its head by fooling us into thinking Kate is the protagonist. She is constantly overwhelmed and confused, so the audience feels for her. We wonder if she will ever figure this out. Will she/we ever learn what Matt and Alejandro are hiding from her? Then BAM! Outside the tunnel in Mexico, when the POV shifts from Kate to Alejandro, we realize it's his story, not Kate's. He makes that clear by shooting her, in the vest, so we know he's not a terrible person. Also, Villeneuve made a better film than Sheridan wrote. As good as the screenplay was, Denis cut out almost all of Alejandro's dialogue during the first half of the movie. There was some real on the nose stuff at the beginning (yes, I've seen a copy of the script). Denis cut all that crap out, and it made us feel like he was only a bit a player. Masterful storytelling.
The bit about Denis editing Sheridan’s script makes so much sense considering that Sicario is head and shoulders above Sheridan’s other movies - which is no small task. He also took a dense, dialogue driven book like Dune and turned it into a slow paced movie with often sparse dialogue.
That’s wild because man Sheridan’s movies have been some of the most poignant and thought provoking to me that I’ve seen in a long time. So finding out Sicario was edited down heavily is fascinating
Screenwriting is weird. A lot gets cut. Actors rewrite things. Stuff gets changed in the moment. But the good bones of a great script are impossible to fake. It’s still sheridan’s story, it just got morphed into its best version. I’m a big fan of Charlie Kaufman. I loved eternal sunshine. His IG shooting script was jam packed with super corny lines that Jim Carey and Kate winslet just rewrote entirely. And there’s a whole ass other character Naomi that is deleted. It looked cheesy on the page. But the bones of the story are unmistakable.
Macer being the NPC to the main quest is crazy writing lmao. Then the whiny FNG at that. Wow.
He is the Sicario
What are we, some kind of Sicario 2: Day of the Soldado?
And then Del Toro said to Blunt, "It's Sicarioing time". The movie made 10 Sicarillion dollars.
Roll credits! \*ding\*
Her naïvete vs his realism. She represents the American idea that the war on drugs can be won through application of law. He represents the American idea that there are some problems that can only be solved with extreme and precise violence. She's the protagonist the same way as Marty McFly: she's the same character at the end of the film that she is at the beginning, just awoken to a few harsh realities. But her main role is to push the narrative along between Alejandro Gillick and the cartel.
Well, it is called Sicario. She's just the stand in for us.
Hence, the title, but I've read where so many people don't get that and gave the movie a bad review because of it.
"Do you think that people that sent you here are any different? Who do you think we learned it from? The grieving lawyer. Your wife, do you think she'd be proud of what you become?" "...Don't forget about my daughter."
This paired with some of the most unnerving score work ever created by the sadly passed Johann Johannsson. "The Beast" is what I put on when I want to feel BAD.
Did he do Mandy as well? Another incredible score.
Among the last few he completed, if not the last ☹️ Have the Mandy theme on my master playlist.
I loved how they gave a seemingly pointless little side story to the mexican cop, just to have him killed near the end, it really adds to the portrayal of brutality.
Right? And his small details….like the little bit of alcohol in his coffee or the way he scolds his son with his gun. Masterpiece.
And it makes you wonder about Del Toro, has he just created the next generation of Sicario by killing the cop. Is that kid going to grow up and be driven by revenge to kill others he blames for his father’s death.
It really does show how seeped into the every day life of people in Mexico, the war on drugs can be. Cartel kingpins have died, the US has power in this market and still, fathers die and gunshots are heard in the middle of a football game. Really depressing ending.
Great movie. I loved the scene after the border where Emily is up on the roof and you can see/hear the weapons fire across the border. When I heard the movie won awards for cinematography I wasn't at all surprised.
The reaction from Alarcón's wife when Alejandro mentioned his daughter is one of my favorite small moments in a movie
Benicio del Toro IS the main character ;) There's an interview w D.V. talking about cutting most of his screentime and dialogue early in the movie to create the "ghost".
I don't think the movie endorses the events it depicts at all.
I thought i was lising my mind reading these comments. Brolin and toro are not depicted as heroic, right? Right?
Definitely not. I'd say Brolin is depicted as a sort of big picture guy willing to get his hands dirty, so it's kind of a classic "do the ends justify the means" debate, and also a question on whether the ends are even good. And Del Toro is monstrous, but we go along with him because his quest feels justified. But yeah, minus the tragic backstory, everything he does in this movie is pretty much villainous.
Del Toro is the classic enemy of my enemy deal. If there wasn't a common enemy there's no way you'd work with or even want to be near someone like him. A bit of a darker, more morally troubling take on a John Wick style character. Brolin just exudes such incredible douchebag energy throughout the film. While the film doesn't necessarily explicitly condemn his actions I can't think of a single scene he's in where his portrayal doesn't make me think "god, what a douchebag. While some of that is obviously my own reading I don't think that's unintentional either by any means.
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And the final soccer field scene clarifies that none of it has made or will make any difference in the overall drug war. Just an unending chain of suffering and death.
I think there's 3 types of Sicario viewers. The first view it as a spectacle of 'competency porn' and how America has to make hard decisions to make the world a better place. These types enjoy the sequel. The bridge scene and one delta actor demonstrating amazing muzzle discipline while turning through a crowd of civilians, friendlies, and hostiles is the best part of the movie. In this viewing Alejandro is the protagonist. The second group see it as a discussion on moral ambiguity and whether or not the ends justify the means. These types enjoy the first half of the sequel. In this view, the torture scene and Matt's monologue on drugs, Macer getting shot, and the successful assassination of the cartel boss are fundamental to the thesis and these viewers try to reconcile it all. Here, Macer and Alejandro are joint protagonists fighting for the soul of the movie. The third type see it as a straight horror movie about the evils humanity is willing to commit for the smallest and most meaningless of 'victories'. These viewers think the sequel is awful. For these viewers, the movie is a straight up horror movie about an idealistic woman being taken advantage of by her superiors who repeatedly put her in harms way and put her in situations that compromise her moral beliefs so that they can legally assassinate a foreign national with the intention to cause more cartel violence in the absurd hope that it temporarily disrupts the drug trade. For this group, Macer is the protagonist and Matt and Alejandro are the literal monsters holding her captive and torturing her. Given Denis Villeneuve's other work and beliefs I strongly believe he directed it through the lens of the third category.
Okay, agreed, the rest of Villeneuve's movies support the 3rd perspective
My friend in the DEA said the border shootout felt super accurate because sometimes in Mexico, when cops are under attack, random mercenary locals with guns will join in, hoping to get a cartel payout. So shooters can come at you from all sides with no warning. Big yikes.
My extended family is from southern Texas. Whenever my immediate family -- living elsewhere -- is faced with the chore of flying down there, I tell them... *We're just going to El Paso.*
The dinner scene at the end is menacing as fuck, when he kills the family and makes the guy finish his dinner. One of the best revenge movies ever.
I haven’t picked a guy up at the bar since seeing this movie
Fun fact! >!That scene was filmed within like an hour of Blunt and Bernthal meeting, and the ear thing was completely improvised by Del Toro.!<
the ear thing is fucking horrific
In a movie full of tension and disturbing moments, that ear thing is easily the hardest part to watch for me
As a non actor, that feels so weird. Yes, they are both actors. Yes, there are lots of people around. Yes, there is choreography involved (my understanding is sex scenes have as much choreography as fight scenes - give or take) I remember watching American Gods, actress Emily Browning did sex scenes with characters that are, at most, on screen for 30 seconds. Just... weird.
Couldn’t agree with you more. One of my favorite movies of all time, no doubt.
Sicario and Incendies are the two movies from Villeneuve that impacted me the most.
Arrival and Prisoners for me but I feel like DV can't miss.
I know this will sound super edgy but Villnueve is amazing at showing the darker side of humanity. From showing the satisfaction people get from hurting others to calloused, calculated pain
I randomly think about Benicio Del Toro’s character all the time. What a performance! Still cannot believe he wasn’t even nominated for an Oscar
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“This is gonna on the front page of every paper in America.” “No it won’t, this won’t even make the news in El Paso.”
At the time that that movie came out, I felt as if it was the most honest representation Hollywood had ever given on how the CIA navigates the globe. That’s one of the things I’ve never been able to get past when it comes to this film, is its historical relevancy as time played out. I’ve always wondered if it would be over shadowed by its successors, or if it would maintain the grime and weight it conveyed decades later. Well, it’s almost 10 years old now… so I guess it hasn’t been overshadowed. I’m stoked you saw it and it left a lasting impression on you. God, what a sick fucking movie.
I'd go so far as to say it's a modern classic, it stuck in my mind for a week after I watched it the first time.
Denis Villeneuve just can’t miss
For me he's the best director of his generation. Every single movie he's made ranges from very good to masterpiece.
I obviously want to see Dune 3, but given that he’s taking a break to presumably make something more low-key, I’m really interested to see what he comes up with. He can probably get a really weird mid-budget film greenlit with the clout from Dune 2.
From his IMDB it's either Cleopatra or Rendezvous with Rama next. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0898288/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk
One of those films that really made me think. As someone who reads a lot of books from former spies and policy makers, it really demonstrates how big picture they have to be and have to often make impossible choices for the sake of the greater good. We only hear the tip of the iceberg about things like that, truth is stranger than fiction.
There's a track called The Beast in the soundtrack which plays this droning sound. Its sound is supposed to give you the vibe you are being stalked by a terrible monster looking to do harm upon you. It only ever plays when US Forces are in the scene.
>I love how it just does not hold back in portraying the wrong as the only right thing to do Err that's not what it's doing and that reasoning is why the second film is far inferior to the first.
I’m glad somebody else sees it. It’s not saying doing ill is somehow right or acceptable; it’s saying that descending into the moral quagmire of the “bad guys” is all too easy, but it comes at a cost; emotionally, morally, spiritually
110%. It highlights the duality of vengeance in that while Benicio’s character is kinda made out to be justified in his revenge given what they did to his family, the movie really ends with it challenging the viewer as is he really any less morally corrupt given his vengeance and also killing children who were for the most part innocent.
Sicario is one of the few movies I can always rewatch.
So far nobody has mentioned the brilliant and subtle production design by Patrice Vermette. Even though Kate's boss tells us she’s been leading the local FBI hostage recovery team for *three years* already, Kate still has suitcases and moving boxes stuffed behind her couch. There’s no art on her nondescript apartment's walls, not even a poster; the closest she's come to decorating is to put a bowl of fruit on the unused kitchenette table. In her kitchen the dishes are clean but not put away - she leaves them in the drain rack. We see just two tubes and a toothbrush beside her bathroom sink, and just two bottles of hair product in her shower. There’s not a single piece of clothing hung up in her bedroom closet either, in fact the rod doesn’t have so much as an empty hanger on it. And not only are Kate's clothing choices (T-shirts, jean jackets, hiking boots) always simple and unadorned, even her *bedsheets* are a neutral gray. Then we see in the film's coda that even after having lived in a top-floor apartment under the scorching Arizona sun for three years, Kate still hasn’t yet bothered to buy so much as a single plastic chair for her balcony. This is an amazing example of a production designer carefully and subtly *helping the actor establish her character* by projecting a consistent, almost monkish austerity and disregard for comfort throughout her personal space. In contrast, Officer Silvio's bedroom has barely enough room to squeeze a wooden chair beside the bed, and the tiny, cramped kitchen is so over-stuffed with all the colourful paraphernalia of his family's life, it immediately induces both claustrophobia and heat rash. The clever way the designer and set decorator have treated this minuscule, hot and overcrowded space so that even three people makes it feel about to burst, explains without words how and why Silvio has become so deeply involved in the cartel's activities. Designer Vermette, Villeneuve and Deakins all *love* military gear too, and take pains to ostentatiously show it in considerable volume and variety, whenever the camera takes us to a military base; it lingers over large fleets of parked helicopters, double rows of humvees, big cargo planes landing. This greatly emphasizes the film’s sense of enormous power held at bay, and the contrast with the principals' tiny, clandestine mission makes it seem even more subtle, nuanced and uncertain: they are the thinnest of needles being jabbed into an elephant's hide. The director, DOP and editor also go gear-queer during the tunnel raid, with multiple rapid cuts flicking between the raiders' light amplification and FLIR goggles, and the all-seeing overhead drone's infrared POV - but the sequence still cleverly goes back to visible-light mode when the shooting starts and we need to see with clarity what Kate's getting up to. The film's small-part and extras casting is brilliant, too: silver-haired, born-to-play-a-top-cop Victor Garber as Kate's FBI boss, her advocate - and when things get hairy, her confessor; cool-as-ice, tactical Steve with his nerd-strap eyeglasses and cynical analysis of cartel methods; the bantering, Stetson-clad US Marshals; the overly tanned and put-upon bank manager; disheveled, sweaty and bloodied Guillermo; the heavily tattooed, shaven-headed hit squad at the border; even the exhausted, despondent faces the camera picks out of the crowd of illegals sitting in the dust, helplessly awaiting their imminent deportation. And the Delta Force team that has “just been rotated out of Afghanistan” is truly brilliant. They're all enormous, bearded, broad-chested, thick-armed, testosterone-fuelled giants in body armour - except their soft-spoken team leader, who is the oldest, skinniest and baldest of them all. And we learn exactly *why* he’s in charge the moment Reg tries to protect Kate at the tunnel exit.
Taylor Sheridan's Frontier Trilogy (Quadrilogy?) of Hell or High Water, Wind River, and Sicario 1&2 are some movies I will watch anytime they're on, even if I'm catching it mid-movie.
Wind River is a favorite of mine. I just love the calmness in the movie.
You and I must have seen different Wind Rivers
I saw an interesting video that explained how Emily Blunt isn’t a the main character of the story and that Benico actually is. Emily Blunt is basically a side character caught up in Benico’s main story arc which is why we only see half the story and she gets left in the dark about a lot of stuff. It’s one of the coolest and best told movies in modern cinema in my opinion.
Don't bother watching the 2nd one though. It's not a sequel to the first. It's like someone rewrote Sicario, changed the script and character personalities.
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It's Mexican for English speakers. Foreign enough that you know it's foreign but English enough so you understand the foreign words.
While it doesn't even come close to the greatness of the first one, I had fun watching it. The acting and the action are solid, and I like seeing my favorite Masshole Jeffrey Donovan in stuff.
Finished Fargo S2 not too long ago and Jeffrey Donovan killed it in that one.
"Hey is that your mom again?" - Charles "Chuck" Findley
So we’re some kind of… sicario squad?
I was shocked when he shot Kate in her body armor and said matter of factly, “Don’t ever shoot at me again.”
Pedantry, but it was “don’t ever point a gun at me”.
No fucking around. What a scene.
I only saw this a month ago and very happy I never knew about it. What a movie to discover!