Friday, October 09, 2015

Sicario is fantastic

Beautifully restrained, very dark, utterly gripping thriller, superbly photographed (Roger Deakins) and scored (Jóhann Jóhannsson). If you liked Prisoners, say, this is in a way a similar film, in that it uses a smaller-scale crime-centred canvas to make a film about post-9/11 America, with huge political implications; only this time - since the film involves the FBI, the CIA, and the "war on drugs," the politics are much more overt. Do not hesitate to see it (though there is some violence you may find objectionable; three people left the theatre where I saw it after a key scene at a dinner table...). It's the most artful film you're likely to see at  a megaplex this year, a total anomaly in some ways; Denis Villeneuve is quickly proving to be one of the greatest living filmmakers working in a commercial medium. Mexicans have been complaining about it a bit but the real "bad guy" of the movie, properly understood, is the United States, so I don't think they should take it too personally...

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