Popular reviews

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  Review by Dead Ringer ★★★★★ 8

  god said let there be light and roger deakins said wait for my cue

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  Review by Mike D'Angelo ★★★★½ 34

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  83/100

  Second viewing, no change. Having now professionally reviewed this film four times (for The Dissolve from Cannes, and then for the A.V. Club, the Nashville Scene, and the Las Vegas Weekly), I thought I had nothing left to say, especially since I made a point of addressing the most common criticisms. But since a bunch of folks are praising Adam Nayman's takedown for Reverse Shot, let me quickly address a few of his points.

  “I have to know,” Kate tells her pal Reggie (Daniel Kaluuya), but there’s little urgency in the role or the performance—and almost none of the obsessive fervor that bled through Jessica Chastain’s porcelain features in Zero Dark Thirty.

  A couple more paragraphs about Zero Dark…

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  Review by SilentDawn ★★★★★ 24

  91/100

  Sicario, not unlike its translation into "hitman", revolves around the act of stealth and the aura of tension it creates. Denis Villeneuve, teaming up again with master DP Roger Deakins, conjures up images of supreme darkness, but the true accomplishment comes not from horror within the now but from the foreboding blare of escalating dread.

  It's nothing less than a sublime concoction, but one that decays as soon as familiarity is presented. With Deakins' soul-searing cinematography, Johann Johannsson's heart-exploding score, and Villeneuve's tracking mindset of "firecracker" pops and splattering eruption; Sicario is an experience that will enthrall any fan of artfully presented gloom, but its subtext and interconnected view of political systems will be even harder to shake.

  Emily…

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  Review by gabriel guimarães? ★★★★★ 2

  The best episode of Narcos I have ever seen.

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  Review by Matt Singer ★★★★ 5

  Remember the scene in BOOGIE NIGHTS where Alfred Molina is randomly tossing firecrackers at Mark Wahlberg and John C. Reilly? SICARIO is like that scene for two straight hours with no “Sister Christian.” It is intense.

  TIFF '15 Review #2: screencrush.com/sicario-review-tiff/

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  Review by Amy Andrews ★★★★½ 5

  A collection of real time thoughts:

  ~ I totes know all about this, I've seen Narcos.
  ~ Well, season one of Narcos anyway...
  ~ Damn less that two minutes in and this cinematography is already SICK.
  ~ Oh shit this is gonna be good.
  ~ Emily Blunt in uniform makes me feel things.
  ~ This is not my dream job.
  ~ INAPPROPRIATE FLIP FLOPS ALERT.
  ~ The least romantic surprise trip to Mexico ever.
  ~ Look at all these lads with their lads banter.
  ~ This cinematography though.
  ~ Am I supposed to be suspicious of Benicio del Toro?
  ~ Blunt is about to be extra woke.
  ~ Wow, I can't wait for Trump's big old wall to come down…

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  Review by Evan ★★★★½ 4

  Sicario might mean Hitman in Mexico. But in my world, Sicario means intense as fucking shit!

  Also, that night scene is the best video game movie we will ever get.

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  Review by davidehrlich ★★★ 12

  as violent, horrifying, and unfocused as the drug war itself. this is muscular filmmaking from the first frame (and man is that prologue ghastly, even for a HELI veteran such as myself), and the runaround storytelling is obviously part of the idea here... getting a clear view of the drug war is like trying to hold water in the palm of your hand, and it ain't subtle...

  but DV only has one instrument: a hammer, and that JJ score is in a pissing contest with Hans Zimmer. throw in Brolin's smug spook charm to soften things up a bit and you've got yourself a real hazy border between a wake-up call narrative and a deep need to entertain (don't even get me started on the Mexican police officer). and then Benicio Del Toro goes full Metal Gear Solid and... yeah, it's potent, but it ain't great.

  #LegalizeBlow

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  Review by #1 gizmo fan ★★★★½ 2

  Denis Villeneuve just became my favorite director. The things this man can do with a camera, I will never stop praising him.

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  Review by Lucy ★★★½ 7

  denis... you can do so much better

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  Review by bree1981 ★★★★★ 7

  This was absolutely epic, a lot better than I was expecting it to be, I was all set to give it 4 and a half stars then I thought, what could it have actually done any better? The answer I came to was nothing, from the first scene to the last this is a white knuckle ride full of tension and suspense, there were a few scenes where I was actually holding my breath.
  Emily Blunt stars as Kate Macer, the leader of a FBI team kicking down doors in Phoenix, Arizona fighting a loosing battle against the ever expanding Mexican drug cartel's when she is manipulated into volunteering for a shadowy government task force lead by Josh Brolin's cocksure…

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  Review by DirkH ★★★★★ 7

  Finding tension in a film is never easy. Too often directors resort to cheap tricks, forgetting the simple fact that feeling tense about a situation is something different from feeling scared.
  There is no cheapness in Sicario. At all. It is a tense, smart and beautiful film that only confirms the talent and versatility of Villeneuve.

  From the get go we are thrown into a world that doesn’t seem like ours but unfortunately is. For two hours we are granted a peek behind the veil, the veil that so comfortably hangs between our sheltered lives and the harsh reality elsewhere. This is a film about the cogs in the machine and the people operating it.

  The cogs in this case…