Quick Thoughts: Sicario

Sicario has been out too long to warrant a full review so I will give my quick thoughts on it.

Lets start with the good:

• Cinematography. The cinematography, done by the legend of our time Roger Deakins, is breathtaking. Every shot is a feast for the eyes, especially the later night time scenes that ooze depth and amazingly actually look like night time unlike a lot of other movies.
• Acting. Everyone gives a stellar performance with the main cast of Emily Blunt, Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Toro really bringing their A-game. The stand out star though has got to be Del Toro with his excellent layered performance of his mysterious character of Alejandro.
• Scrip. The scrip is wonderfully tight and has realistic and has lots of clever dialogue that brings the intrigue of the plot to life.
• Action. I don't really want to call them 'action' scenes as they are propelled by the suspense created and not necessarily the action, because of this is makes for some of the most suspenseful scenes seen in cinemas this year creating really 'edge of your seat' stuff.
• Characters. While somewhat archetypal they still are very layered and intriguing and are what really tie the film together and keep it rolling through some of the slower sections.

Now the bad:

• Sound-mixing. The sound effects for Sicario were excellent with great gun sounds and the like but it really wasn't mixed particularly well with the action being too loud and and the dialogue being too quiet, this forced my ears to constantly adjust which was irritating and made me miss some of the quiet dialogue and in a movie like this that isn't something you can do without missing important lines.
• Story. The story is a pretty much by the book drug movie with no real surprises and was occasionally a bit hard to follow, this isn't much of a gripe however as it has sky high production values that more than make up for it.
• Sometimes a bit boring. Through some of the longer dialogue scenes I found myself a bit bored and just waiting for the next suspenseful action set piece. This is quite a lot of personal preference however.

Overall I would absolutely recommend this movie to somebody who likes a well acted suspense drama, not unlike Hurt Locker. However if you go to see movies for a bit of fun, I do not recommend Sicario as, while great, has a really dark tone and is not what would be described as a 'fun' movie.

Hope you enjoyed my new 'Quick Thoughts' post. I will be doing these more for films that I see later than I would like. 

Thanks for sticking around.

-Joe