This movie almost gave me a panic attack. Absolutely incredible. Emily Blunt delivers one of the year's best performances in a game-changing role reminiscent of Clarice Starling, but Benicio del Toro and Josh Brolin were also fantastic. All three deserve awards consideration. This film features some of the year's most tense sequences (the traffic jam, the tunnel sequence and Kate's apartment realization are the three that spring to mind - all three legitimately freaked me out) and is beautifully photographed by Roger Deakins. Another winner from Denis Villeneuve. Also, the score deserves special mention as well - it's the stuff of nightmares. A

Remarkable. Just crazy suspenseful, danger at every corner, edge of your seat kinda stuff. Denis Villeneuve casts a very oppressive mood, aided by Roger Deakins' amazing cinematography, and a powerful score. Emily Blunt gives what probably is her best performance here, and acts as the audience surrogate. We feel every pang of emotion through her eyes. It is a raw and affecting performance. Benicio Del Toro is also fantastic, delivering a fiery and volatile performance. The rest of the cast is top notch, as well. Sicario gets under your skin and does not let up until the end. A

Pretty good film. Didn't love it but I found a lot of scenes were very well executed, definitely one that sticks with you after it ends for awhile.

Sicario is a haunting and uncompromising look at a system of corruption and disarray. Emily Blunt's (terrific) FBI agent Kate Macer guides the audience through a descent into the muddled terrain of the American war on drugs. Denis Villenueve is quickly becoming a go-to for disturbing dramas about the darker side of human nature. Josh Brolin and especially Benicio Del Toro give effective performances as people with entirely unclear motivations and allegiances who seem like they *should* have extremely clear ones. Stunning cinematography by Roger Deakins and an eerie score by Johan Johansson add to the grisly, unclean feeling the movie leaves the viewer with. While I thought it could've used a bit of tightening up at points, Sicario is certainly one of the best movies of the year and one that will be hard to forget. A-

After leading a raid on a suburban home discovered to contain over 40 corpses, an FBI agent (Emily Blunt) is invited to join an inter-agency force pursuing a powerful and volatile Mexican drug cartel. She suspects the group's brash leader (Josh Brolin) and his opaque close associate (Benicio Del Toro) may be employed by the CIA and grows uncomfortable with several of their arguably extralegal tactics, as well as her poorly defined role in the operation, but she is driven forward by a desire to counter the disorder and violence plaguing the border with her vision of justice. Directed by Denis Villeneuve, the evocatively titled Sicario is an absorbing and tightly wound suspense film concerned with the inherent moral ambiguity and cyclical, sensational cruelty of the drug war. It is a hard and cynical film, as it should be, shot in foreboding, arid tones by inimitable cinematographer Roger Deakins and pivoting first and foremost on procedural detail and brutal, no-B.S., incredibly well-orchestrated action set pieces, including a perilous motorcade excursion into Ciudad Juárez.

A chief highlight is a marvelous performance by Del Toro, his best since the memorable one-two combo of Traffic and 21 Grams. He is captivating as Alejandro, a figure whose objective and role (double agent? mercenary?) is as hard to unravel as his very presence in a room, an improbable blend of mournful elegance and an implicit menace. It is a turn of subtlety and precision, slowly burning to a ferocious place. Emily Blunt is also in fine form, and her dynamic quality compensates for the overall film's one notable shortcoming: her character, Kate, is a bit of a cliché, an in-over-her-head cipher whose not-always-convincing naïvety is plainly designed as a lens through which the audience can be introduced to this complicated and dangerous world. Put simply, it is hard to argue Kate (on paper) is the most worthwhile or colorful character through which to experience this specific story, yet Blunt, exuding a taut resolve always in contest with a deeper sensitivity, breathes an astonishing amount of verve and vitality into the role and holds her own.

A-

An interesting film but with the acclaim it's hard not to be a little letdown by it. There was a lot of build-up which I thought was leading to something but it really didn't. And I was pretty disappointed by Blunt's character. I didn't like that they made her so weak and, frankly, kind of whiny. I expected her to be tougher. I thought in a way it just perpetuated the stereotype that women are weaker and can't handle the same jobs men can, which is unfortunate. Her character is my biggest grievance with the film.

Blunt is a great actress and I was expecting a great performance but she really wasn't given enough to do. She did the best she could with the way her character was written.

One of the highlights of the film for me was the score by Jóhann Jóhannsson. I thought that was terrific. And the film itself is good. I just wanted better.

I'll give it a solid B+.

I don't think Blunt's character is weak at all. She's just naive about the corrupted system and doesn't know what she's getting herself into. She's the audience surrogate.

Completely agreed.

She is too obvious an audience surrogate. It is a bit trite.

The best scene had to be the patrolling of Juarez. The mutilated bodies were disturbing

B+

It's phenomenally well-acted and directed, but Blunt is too much of an audience surrogate -- I didn't buy into the idea that someone as clueless as she is could be in her position. It also never really felt like it was building toward anything. At a certain point, the characters do a thing, another character does a thing, end of movie. It lacks impact, emotionally or otherwise.

That said, again, fantastic performances, and when the film wants to be it's utterly tense. I didn't like PRISONERS at all and I'm lower on SICARIO than most on the board, but I think Villeneuve absolutely has a grand slam film in him.

Prisoners was one of the best movies of 2013.

It was certainly one of the most unintentionally silly movies of 2013.

You and I agree on something!

I loved Prisoners. Guess my credibility is gone with TDS.

What am I saying? I never had credibility!

Haha. People don't lose credibility with me based on what they like. I'm a SAW fan, after all!

I found Prisoners extremely engrossing until the final 25 or so minutes. Then it lost me and became quite goofy.

Very, very strong acting, though.

Marry me!

miss your insight g.

Truth

Bjs Grade

A

this movie is outstanding.

Great film, but I'd say I slightly prefer Prisoners. The highlight here is easily Benicio Del Toro as this is definitely some of his best work in a long time. Emily Blunt is also pretty solid acting wise, but I thought she was much better in EOT and honestly didn't care that much for her character here. She did seem more whiney and helpless most of the time eventhough I understand why her character was made that way. Josh Brolin was just there, but he did a good job, especially with the humor and you know when John Bernthal shows up he's a bad guy. I wish him and even Jeffrey Donovan were used more. The score/atmosphere in this movie is fantastic aswell and there are essentially three scenes which really elevated this for me. When the team first enters Juarez and the tunnel sequence are incredibly well shot and the final confrontation between Del Toro and the Cartel leader at the house was insanely tense. This movie is definitely masterful filmmaking at it's finest.

I was with the movie for about twenty minutes. Deakins cinematography, the chilling score, the empowerment of Emily Blunt, Brolin in flip flops and the thrilling opening raid all had me revved up to go as deep as this world would let me go. Unfortunately that turned out to be not all that deep. The ads sold this movie on the build up to the bridge shootout. And this is set up perfectly in the movie, with potential danger on all sides, even President Taft and his own army wouldn't feel safe on that bridge. But then the team just end up killing some people who didn't stand a chance, while Emily Blunt is nearly killed as she watches on in horror.

This is all that happens for the rest of the movie. Terrific build-up, disappointing pay off, cops do something horrible, Blunt is outraged, Brolin or somebody else convinces her they're the good guys, Blunt ideology nearly gets her killed and repeat another three times. Well we get some scenes showing us how great of a father the bad guy is, but that doesn't really go anywhere either. Neither do Brolin's flip flops as he becomes the generic "not telling us everything" agent. Also going nowhere is Emily Blunt's character, who feels completely inconsequential to the main events. A shocking twist near the end reveals that she actually is just as useless as she appears, literally only there to look pretty and let the CIA operate legally within the borders. All her earlier empowerment is stripped away. That could be an interesting arc if it resulted in ... Anything. She has no point. Benicio Del Toro is the star of this movie, by far the most interesting character and a child killing monster. Sicario!

So while the production is excellent, the story gives this movie little reason to exist. A waste of Blunt. At least Deakins gets to shine, and does his best to make this compelling.

Prisoners was a lot better, even with the stupid ending.

Although it's not quite as powerful as his previous wide American release, Prisoners, Denis Villenue's Sicario is nearly as uncompromising and cynical as films come, and it's all the better for it. Villenue's narrative aligns perfectly for an empowerment narrative with the trajectory that it sets for Emily Blunt's protagonist from its opening scene, but it brilliantly subverts that trajectory with all that follows. While some viewers may argue that the film ultimately shortchanges Blunt's character, it actually highlights the frustrating sense of her powerlessness as an out-of-place do-gooder in the face of such thoroughly-corrupted evil. Blunt hits every beat in her performance, and she acts as a near-perfect audience surrogate into the corruption and relative lawlessness of the North American crackdown on South American drug cartels. Like Jessica Chastain in Zero Dark Thirty, she zeroes in on intense devotion to one's job at the expense of other considerations, and she does so in such a complete manner that she feels well-rounded rather than simply one-dimensional; in particular, the sex scene gone awry feels particularly heartbreaking if only for the fact that the one scene in which she is allowed to feel any kind of personal pleasure is instead transformed into a violent confrontation. Her work here eclipses both her brilliantly acerbic comedic performance in The Devil Wears Prada and her edgy maternal work in Looper as a new career best. Benicio Del Toro is also in fine form as the title character. In a performance that represents the polar opposite of his very underrated work in Savages, Del Toro is subtly intimidating in the title role for most of the running time, but he commands the screen with ferocity in the film's final act, and in turn, delivers his best work since his Oscar win nearly fifteen years ago. With how solid Del Toro is in this role (especially his final two scenes), it's easy to see why anyone is speculating as to the potential of a sequel. On the whole, the film certainly touches on dark themes and never compromises in its incredibly pessimistic perspective on human nature, it - like Villenue's Prisoners - does a terrific job of tapping into the darker side of human nature without batting an eye, and is all the better for it.

A-

Awesome film. Sicario sets a great mood from the start, has a great cast and is so well directed. Del Toro has been doing this for so long now, but it's just another classic performance from him. He could easily get a nomination for this. Blunt is also really good, but I just have a little bit of a problem with her character, don't know why she had to be such a pussy actually. Brolin is solid, and since Alias I love Victor Garber. The first hour of the film is amazing, great scenes and scenery, really well shot, it totally puts you in there with excellent views of the scene. You're put in Blunt's shoes, and this is interesting in the beginning when the story develops, later on Del Toro becomes more the focal point and rightfully so. The film has a good payoff involving him too.
For the second half of the film, Blunt becomes a bit of a nag and that's unattractive, I therefor felt the script/ writing could have been better, and limiting it from getting an absolute top score.
The music is also very good, and the night scene near the end is superbly thrilling too.
I'm a fan of Villeneuve, but I had concerns about this film from the trailer, but those were so unfounded. It's so well made, and engaging, it's up there with his best films (only seen Enemy and Prisoners before). He's on a great streak, and I look forward to his next film.

A-