Sicario (2015)
Go ahead and finish your meal.
THE SUMMARY: An affirmative action FBI agent-ette is recruited to assist in the search for the leader of a Mexican drug cartel, only to discover that there aren’t really good guys and bad guys when dealing with the feds, just bad guys, and her only partial claim to being a good guy is her own incompetence.
It’s another movie that on paper I should enjoy. I want to like it, and there are broad themes about it I appreciate, but in practice I found it annoying, depressing, and just an overall chore to watch. Lessons on the feds appreciated, entertainment and enjoyment factor lacking.
FROM MOVIE PICKER JAMES: I wanted to put a Denis Villeneuve movie on the list. I almost chose Blade Runner 2049, but I figured that would piss everybody off. This one is a better movie anyways. Very entertaining and brutal commentary on the war on drugs. A fun black pill.
THE BEST:
On point depiction of the feds: Between the FBI and the CIA and every fed in between, there are only two types: the evil, and the incompetent. Emily Blunt’s character Kate Macer is the incompetent variety. She thinks she’s on this assignment for her skill - nope. She’s just bar bait for the horny cartel dude, and the only reason he knows who she is is because she foolishly put her face on the cameras at the bank in the first place.
On the other side, you have the evil, Josh Brolin’s character CIA officer Matt Graver, who dupes Macer into believing she’s fighting the horrors of the drug trade, when in fact the CIA is propping up its preferred cartel. I laughed out loud when Graver said the mission is to assist one cartel into power so that the US can more easily control it. Sure, it’s fiction, but how fictional is it really? Are we fighting internationally for morality and peace? Or are we just fighting for control?
On point depiction of Mexican cartels: Sicario has some graphic scenes of cartel violence aftermath. The discovery of the bodies in the walls of the house raided in the opening scene. The dismembered corpses hanging in the Juarez streets as the convoy charges through. It’s tempting and comforting to think these are images of exaggerated fiction, but they aren’t. Nine mutilated bodies actually dangled from an overpass in the city of Uruapan in 2019. If you’ve listened to the show for a while, you’ve likely heard me reference the most horrifically violent video I’ve ever seen, a compilation of Mexican cartel violence edited by friend and listener ElVaquero555 (if you decide to watch, be forewarned it is hideously gruesome material, and it legitimately bothered me mentally for the whole day after watching it).
These scenes are no exaggeration - they are real, and especially if you live in the southern US, these are horrors that aren’t too far from home.
On point depiction of the futility of our attempts to control other countries: In that same scene with Macer, where Garver admits the truth of the operation, he says ‘order is the best we can hope for,’ making the case that controlling the cartel is the most realistic option until people ‘stop snorting and smoking that shit.’ But is it? For all the effort, what order was achieved? Was Mexico improved? Was the US improved? Can order ever be imposed by an outside foreign force, or must it come from within? There are a lot of great questions and themes to ponder about US foreign policy and intervention in this movie.
THE WORST:
Kate Macer is insufferable: The lead character singlehandedly wrecks this movie for me. It’s as if the director wanted to demonstrate female incompetence, though I doubt that would be an intended Hollywood message. Her biggest contribution to the operation is trying to bang a rando from the bar, getting strangled to what should be death, but having a man bail her out and spare her life. The rest of the time she chain-smokes while pondering the moral failures of others. And in the end, she gets no redemption or satisfaction - she bitches out and signs Alejandro’s paperwork, and she bitches out again and doesn’t take the shot on him. And even though Alejandro warned her never to point a gun at him again, he doesn’t relieve us all by relieving her of her life, which would have been a great ending. Disappointment all around.
All of this movie’s best themes and messages are delivered despite Kate, not because of her. Kate’s character is so bad and annoying I have to believe there’s a reason for that - here’s one possible explanation besides Hollywood turning on muh powerful wahmen: Kate is actually the villain of the movie. It explains her behavior, and it explains her being unlikeable.Even if the point is pointlessness, the movie is depressing: Obviously, the point of this movie is the pointlessness. An endless drug war that hopes not for resolution, but just for control. A family slaughtered only to be avenged by another family slaughtered. A Mexican police officer killed only so his son can grow up playing soccer fatherless with still more gunfire ruining other families in the background. I get it - the message is despite the show, it’s all wasteful and destructive. But that doesn’t mean I enjoyed watching it. The movie is a total black pill, and there are plenty of those to swallow in real life.
Fire the sound guy: I know I’ve complained about this issue prior with Dr. Strangelove, and you might immediately blame my sound system, but I watched this movie on a totally different TV with a proper soundbar setup. The sound levels in this movie are outright atrocious. The explosions rattle the walls, and the whisper dialogue is hard to hear over the mouse in the next house over. I was constantly turning the volume way up and way down, which made for frustrating viewing. I guess I must be crazy though - Friend of the Show™ Michael Ssssschlect informs me this movie was nominated for an Oscar for best sound editing. Preposterous.
THE RATING: 2/5 Wickies. That feels low given the broad themes I appreciated, but I was so thoroughly annoyed by Kate that I was glad to see the credits roll as abruptly and pointlessly as her bar hookup gone wrong. Make the same movie without the chick drama and I’d likely enjoy it much more.
YOUR RATING: Vote here ⬇ (Note - the original poll on this movie was broken and was not accepting votes, so I refreshed it after the stream Sunday. Apology to the early voters!)
NEXT WEEK: In Bruges (2008)
AFTER THAT? YOU PICK - VOTE! September’s movie nominations come from listener James! This will be the last of James’ selections, so choose carefully. The list will refresh for October.
(Note: it appears this poll is also malfunctioning, as of Sunday night/Monday morning. Some votes are being recorded, and not others. Unfortunately, since so many have already voted, I’ll have to let it slide this week and make sure we have the system functioning for next week. My apology! I swear I’m not trying to fortify the election!)
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