Sicario (2015)

"Sicario" is the fourth movie I've seen directed by Denis Villeneuve. After "Prisoners", "Enemy" and "Incendies". So my expectantions were high. As production level it doesn't disappoint. About the story, oh well ... the story ...

The story is so predictable that it contrasts about this even with "Enemy" from the above, not to mention "Prisoners" and "Incendies" where there are final twists. A mysterious guy with South-American origins is introduced in the beginning of the movie as collaborator of a task force assigned with surveying the a Mexican cartel trafficking drugs at the U.S. border. The movie is called "Sicario" - the assassin, and the meaning of the term given in the first 10 seconds makes that everything that follows to come up very clearly. You can see from a mile that our guy has his own personal vendetta. Yes, you're given bits and pieces of info during the movie about the reasons for that and his connections with the case, but nothing to produce the "wow" we had in the other pictures. Overall the story is decent, but doesn't rise above an ok action movie. So if you're expecting final twists, or something out of the ordinary to come up, forget it ...

The directing is, however, at the same quality level as we've seen before. A build-up that's again probably a bit too slow, but where you have an uneasy tension kept constant. It's that grim feeling that something bad will happen ... Which seems to become a trademark for Villeneuve that gets better with every new movie, although here seems a bit lighter than the rest. And the cinematography (Roger Deakins) comes as the perfect support for this as well as the soundtrack (Johann Johannsson). I can bet that Deakins will score another nomination at next year's Oscars. Probably that's the best part of the movie, and if you like innuendo-s or fine allusions obtained through visual metaphot, then probably it's worth to watch "Sicario" more than once. Even though pretty much all the frames that carry some extra meaning have this related to the idea that "life is desolate and dark, people are evil & death is near the corner". The shadows are, however, so nicely shot that you cannot get bored with what you see.

Thinking back now, it comes to my mind something quite close to the topic that I've seen during the last year: "Snitch". A story based apparently on real facts, almost unbelievable considering that, and clearly more complex than what we have here. Too bad that the production level there = directing, sound, cinematography, is average. I'm wondering... what if we would have had the "Snitch" story in "Sicario", or the crew of "Sicario" working on "Snitch" ...

Rating: 4 out of 5