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Why are you texting during the movie? Stop that.
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Oct 19, 2015 02:43
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I stopped looking at my phone after I read it. It was really good! Wish I saw the opening though. I was very captivated all throughout. Josh Brolin played such a likable scumbag Cromlech fucked around with this message at 03:22 on Oct 19, 2015 |
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Oct 19, 2015 03:14
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GonSmithe posted:Moviepostershop.com has good quality stuff as long as you don't get the GIANT ones. I was just looking this up on there because I want that drat tunnel poster, but... apparently they don't have anything for this movie. 
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Oct 19, 2015 03:16
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I'm from the border area (Matamoros, Tamaulipas) and my dad had to go work in Juarez for a good 6 months or so and we almost had to move out over there because of his job and he would always tell me these hosed up stories about Juarez. My city is also very dangerous and this movie had an effect like me like no other movie really has. The scene where they're crossing the border and meet up with the federales is like something I experienced in real life. Seriously this movie is so loving insane and its so good. They really loving nailed it. It was amazing.
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Oct 19, 2015 17:56
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What are your thoughts on the reaction I've seen in some places that the film is anti-Mexican and xenophobic? They mayor of Juarez and others spoke against it as an over-simplified film that stereotypes scary illegals. Seems like that's just kind of the story that was told, but I wouldn't visit Juarez after seeing it.
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Oct 19, 2015 22:13
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Electromax posted:What are your thoughts on the reaction I've seen in some places that the film is anti-Mexican and xenophobic? They mayor of Juarez and others spoke against it as an over-simplified film that stereotypes scary illegals. Seems like that's just kind of the story that was told, but I wouldn't visit Juarez after seeing it. I understand the Mayor of Juarez's complaint, but there's not a lot you can do about that. Just because crime is getting better there doesn't mean that it hasn't been bad, and you can't hold films to be accurate by time they are finished being made. That's just ridiculous. No one really wins there. As for the xenophobic aspect, I think it's basically unfounded. In fact, the way the story is told we really only see Americans (and Alejandro) being monsters and Mexicans being victims. Yes we see bodies and are told stories about the crimes committed by the Cartel, but none of these things happen on-screen. On the flip side, we see a bunch of (predominantly white male) American paramilitary operators gun down Mexicans like they are expendable movie bad-guys, and literally oppress the female and black police officers. These aren't accidents. Sicario makes a pretty damning statement about the way American authority treats human life. There's even a line reminding us that the American public's demand for narcotics is what fuels the Cartel violence in Mexico.
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Oct 19, 2015 22:23
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Snak posted:I understand the Mayor of Juarez's complaint, but there's not a lot you can do about that. Just because crime is getting better there doesn't mean that it hasn't been bad, and you can't hold films to be accurate by time they are finished being made. That's just ridiculous. No one really wins there. Exactly. Not even just the demand, but the fact that drug prohibition (and the moralization of drug use or addiction) is the very engine of the militarized conflict. With Mexico, America has successfully created a big loving scapegoat for its own lovely political/economic/moral failings.
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Oct 20, 2015 03:13
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Something that really stood out to me with this movie was just how powerless the protagonist is throughout. Really gives the audience a sense of hopelessness and that the drug trade is an unstoppable machine.
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Oct 20, 2015 04:39
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I'm not gonna lie. I'm going through some reasonably serious depression right now, and I think I big part of why I loved this movie so much is because I felt like it affirmed my view that the world is poo poo and there's nothing anyone can do about it.
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Oct 20, 2015 04:43
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Snak posted:I'm not gonna lie. I'm going through some reasonably serious depression right now, and I think I big part of why I loved this movie so much is because I felt like it affirmed my view that the world is poo poo and there's nothing anyone can do about it. Henry Miller posted:Everything is endured--disgrace, humiliation, poverty, war, crime, ennui--in the belief that overnight something will occur, a miracle, which will render life tolerable. And all the while a meter is running inside and there is no hand that can reach in there and shut it off. All the while some one is eating the bread of life and drinking the wine, some dirty fat cockroach of a priest who hides away in the cellar guzzling it, while up above in the light of the street a phantom host touches the lips and the blood is pale as water. And out of the endless torment and misery no miracle comes forth, no microscopic vestige even of relief. Only ideas, pale, attenuated ideas which have to be fattened by slaughter; ideas which come forth like bile, like the guts of a pig when the carcass is ripped open.
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Oct 20, 2015 07:04
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Snak posted:I'm not gonna lie. I'm going through some reasonably serious depression right now, and I think I big part of why I loved this movie so much is because I felt like it affirmed my view that the world is poo poo and there's nothing anyone can do about it. As a fellow depressed, the movie can also be read to highlight that fatalism as a reason things have gotten so bad in the first place. And so we may find that there is something that can be done, but it's going to hurt, and the primary agents of that pain will be from our own "side".
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Oct 20, 2015 08:04
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It was brought up earlier, but can anyone clarify what the aim of the tunnel mission was? It doesn't seem to achieve anything, but it must just have been badly explained in the film. They don't begin until they see Diaz called back so how could it possibly have been a diversion or 'intentional chaos'? Everything is already in progress, so would anything have changed if they hadn't started there? Also, perhaps I was distracted, but there seemed to be scenes cut between Kate having her gun disabled and Reggie telling her to stay close, and then Kate walking out into the warehouse. I had no idea how she came to be there rather than with the team. Maybe something was lost there. General observations: - its great - probably less than the sum of its parts, but only because some of the parts are fantastic - I too thought that I saw Silvio in the traffic jam, and therefore when we are shown his son standing by an empty bed I thought he had been killed - I like the idea that this is a standard Hollywood revenge action film, but from the point of view of a random side character. I guess this is emphasised by the planned sequel focusing on Alejandro, but it did seem that it could have been an old Schwarzenegger script transformed into the point of view of some random person that appears briefly in a couple of scenes and 'gets in the way' of a man doing manly things. - Alejandro was a prosecutor, but was this a literal truth? When he turned into super assassin I wondered if it was tongue-in-cheek nickname; he prosecutes people for his Cartel.
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Oct 20, 2015 16:04
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ChrisXP posted:It was brought up earlier, but can anyone clarify what the aim of the tunnel mission was? The idea is that the justification for the tunnel mission is that they are disrupting the drug trade and creating chaos in order to shake things up in the Cartel hierarchy. While this might be true of their general strategy, the actual purpose of the tunnel mission is to insert Alejandro behind enemy lines with support. You can they didn't need to do all that to insert Alejandro, but the way they work is by making all their resources, drones, satalites etc appear to have been used for legit operations, and really the tunnel mission was a low effort shooting gallery for them, so it's not like it was inconvenient. As far as Alejandro, I assume it was literally true, and that his family was killed because his work inconvenienced the Cartel.
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Oct 20, 2015 16:16
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second-hand smegma posted:Exactly. Not even just the demand, but the fact that drug prohibition (and the moralization of drug use or addiction) is the very engine of the militarized conflict. With Mexico, America has successfully created a big loving scapegoat for its own lovely political/economic/moral failings. There's a pretty solid theory that the success of Plan Colombia, for better or for worse, is a pretty direct cause of the Mexican Drug War, which puts paid to the idea that the goal of eradicating narcotrafficking is at best a dangerous delusion. In the Bush and Clinton administrations, it was noted by studies that treatment is far cheaper, but that's not what the War on Drugs is about. Now that it's here, it goes of its own momentum. Plan Colombia just created a vacuum which was quickly and enthusiastically filled. This is why the film's a response to Zero Dark Thirty, the WOD/WOT parallels are so close they're instructive: zero-tolerance hardline reactionary policy does not work without addressing the underlying issue, it just moves the problem somewhere else. With Columbia as Iraq/Afghanistan and Mexico as their Syria, there's enough on the surface that you don't need to say it aloud. Especially with Alejandro as the "moderate" proxy who theoretically/tangentially serves U.S. interests by helping align the actors into "manageable chaos" but really serves his own interests by settling scores. How many times has that played out? HUNDU THE BEAST GOD fucked around with this message at 16:50 on Oct 20, 2015 |
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Oct 20, 2015 16:38
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ChrisXP posted:It was brought up earlier, but can anyone clarify what the aim of the tunnel mission was?
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Oct 20, 2015 17:05
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And also, it's important to realize that looking at it like "why spend all these resources and devote all this effort to a pointless little raid to shoot some drug mules" is actually backwards. At the end of the year, the CIA, FBI etc. are going to say "look, we used all these resource and all this military force fighting the war on drugs. But we haven't won yet. Keep giving us more firepower and more broad-reaching authority". The fact that the op is hilarious overkill and they could have just sent Alejandro basically by himself to the Cartel leader's house is part of the theme of how hosed up it is that they're making this sort of application of military force legal. The fact that Kate's boss re-assures her that she's not going to get in trouble because all this is totally sanctioned doesn't make her or the audience feel better about it because that's the scary part.
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Oct 20, 2015 17:48
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But that doesn't make any sense. If the idea of using Alejandro is plausible deniability for the US in their drug war, why would the US turn around and openly admit to a drug war they need more resources to fight? His presence is completely unnecessary. Delta is RIGHT THERE. If the US is going to acknowledge Delta was there, why did they need Alejandro?
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Oct 20, 2015 18:34
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Alejandro represents a relationship.
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Oct 20, 2015 19:02
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physeter posted:But that doesn't make any sense. If the idea of using Alejandro is plausible deniability for the US in their drug war, why would the US turn around and openly admit to a drug war they need more resources to fight? I'm not sure you're understanding what's going on here... Alejandro isn't plausible deniability for the drug war. He's plausible deniability for the assassination. The tunnel op is more or less above board. It's legal and sanctioned by the government. No one involved in it except Kate and Reggie, have any qualms about Alejandro going off and assassinating someone. But that part's not legal and above board. If it was, they could just send Delta to kill the drug lord and his family. But if they get caught, their could be backblast. Instead, they have Alejandro and they can use their existing drone support to follow him and document his success, but that drone was officially there for the tunnel op, and if Alejandro fails, they lose nothing. The op is still successful on record. Alejandro is a convenient asset for both the Colombian Cartel and the US, because he's complete disposable and doesn't actually trace back to either of them if he is caught or killed. If Alejandro fails, they lose nothing. If he succeeds, they get something for nothing.
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Oct 20, 2015 19:09
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Snak posted:I'm not sure you're understanding what's going on here... Alejandro isn't plausible deniability for the drug war. He's plausible deniability for the assassination. No, I understand it fine. I think it's more that there is nothing plausibly deniable about a druglord's entire household being gunned down, all while Delta is 20 minutes away shooting up this guy's minions and drug tunnel. Alejandro also deliberately left a living witness (hello, kitchen maid). That is the absolute opposite of plausibly deniable.
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Oct 20, 2015 20:06
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Won't the murder of a druglord and their family be written off as a result of the chaos intentionally cause by Delta? In fact the witness seeing a Mexican hitman rather than US operatives is exactly what they want? edit: I'm not trying to be confrontational. I just don't see the issue. It's not like anyone is scrutinizing these events on sketchyOps.wikia or something. The American public and the Mexican government will probably never find out that the op took place. The only people there needs to plausible deniability for is people like Kate's boss who might see the after-action reports. There's probably going to be a report somewhere that says paramilitary action to destabilize the Mexican Cartels succeeded to the point that a Cartel leader was assassinated in the chaos Snak fucked around with this message at 20:57 on Oct 20, 2015 |
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Oct 20, 2015 20:43
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Electromax posted:What are your thoughts on the reaction I've seen in some places that the film is anti-Mexican and xenophobic? They mayor of Juarez and others spoke against it as an over-simplified film that stereotypes scary illegals. Seems like that's just kind of the story that was told, but I wouldn't visit Juarez after seeing it. I think the mayor of Juarez is just full of poo poo and lying through his teeth to be honest. Something I learned growing up was to not trust the police or those in positions of power because more likely than not they are very corrupt. I love Mexico and I still consider it my home. Despite living in the states and being born in the states I don't really consider it my home at all. The core Mexican values are beautiful and has the most loving people out there. Unfortunately the reality is that the cartels really do hold so much power over the country and have terrorized anyone and everyone. I know people who have been kidnapped and been held for ransom. My own uncle was robbed and they took everything he had on him including his truck. I think the movie is good because it highlights these issues and that is the focus. It's told through the pov of an American trying to make sense of the madness. Of course not all Mexicans are involved with cartels. If you want to go to Mexico then go to Mexico, but be careful you know. Its safe enough that if you know what you're doing you won't get in trouble but yeah I mean it can get very scary. Also yeah I would never go to Juarez even before this movie came out. E: to add another thing about this is that the truth about cartels and cartel violence in Mexico is so censored to the point that if a news station or paper reports on anything cartel related they would also be subject to kidnapping or killed. This is why a lot of times a lot of this type of poo poo is not reported. I've witnessed at least 3 shootouts outside my house (I think I even made a thread here in gbs about it one time). And when I uploaded pics online my parents made me take them down in fear of something like this happening. These shootings were definitely not reported. I've seen the aftermath of police raids the next morning that were not reported either in my neighborhood as well. gently caress cartels The REAL Goobusters fucked around with this message at 23:40 on Oct 20, 2015 |
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Oct 20, 2015 23:18
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physeter posted:No, I understand it fine. I think it's more that there is nothing plausibly deniable about a druglord's entire household being gunned down, all while Delta is 20 minutes away shooting up this guy's minions and drug tunnel. Alejandro also deliberately left a living witness (hello, kitchen maid). That is the absolute opposite of plausibly deniable. I feel you're over thinking this result like everyone is going to know what happens and everyone is going to scrutinize everything that happened. On paper they have a bust of a drug tunnel and that's it. That's a thing they're allowed to do and if anyone glances at it the operation, it will just seem like business as usual. Yes, around the same time the head of one of the cartels was taken down but that stuff happens all the time and the connection would be hard to make if someone was looking for the connection which they most likely won't be. Like, who is going to look into the murder of the head of a drug cartel and his family? The important thing was not make it obvious and to justify the use of resources. I mean, it's also now like that maid is gonna know who who that guy was who killed her boss anyways, and if for some reason she does know, he's a guy with a well known grudge against the cartels that if someone bothered connecting him back to the operation, they could just claim they lost track of him in the chaos, the end. Like the whole last operation is the culmination of two major themes in the movie: the drug war is this awful thing that most people don't really pay attention to and the people that are fighting the war are more concerned with looking ethical than actually being ethical. axelblaze fucked around with this message at 03:14 on Oct 21, 2015 |
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Oct 21, 2015 03:11
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axleblaze posted:Like the whole last operation is the culmination of two major themes in the movie: the drug war is this awful thing that most people don't really pay attention to and the people that are fighting the war are more concerned with looking ethical than actually being ethical. I think that there's kind of a third major theme, which is that the cycle of violence is both making people more violent, and making us move the goal posts of what's legally ethical. In fact, I think that not only does Alejandro represent what Kate could become if her desire for revenge overcame her ethical boundaries, he represents what the supposed good guys are willing to do. Sure his actions aren't "officially sanctioned" but are his interrogations not analogous to the enhanced interrogations sanctioned in the War on Terror? I what he does to the drug lord really different than a drone strike? Alejandro behaves after losing his family like America behaves after 9/11. His most humanizing scene is when, after he first meets Kate on the plane, he has fallen asleep and is having a nightmare. That even though his actions have become corrupted by business interests, the drive to violence is also centered on fear. If we look at Kate as a mirror for Alejandro, she becomes the America that refuses to compromise moral integrity out of fear. And the ones who profit from the violence spy on her and threaten her. Edit: Also, I bears pointing out that while Kate did not lose two blood-relatives, she lost two fellow officers, one by burning, and one by dismemberment. Snak fucked around with this message at 07:15 on Oct 21, 2015 |
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Oct 21, 2015 07:11
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I hate that I have to say this, but those of you who think Alejandro works for the Columbian Cartels have it wrong. Medellin refers to an era not an entity. They say so flat out. In real life this sort of action mirrors allegations about Operation Fast & Furious that it was used to arm up Sinaloa to attempt to stabilize the region Alejandro hasn't been doing this forever either. Before he waterboards Guillermo he encounters an acquaintance at the facility who expresses his sympathy for the loss of Alejandro's family. That indicates it's a fairly recent event. It's obvious that the CIA resident agent learned about it happening, forwarded it up the chain, and they recruited Alejandro to be an asset (and probably trained him too). How much was on the job and how much was school we don't know. With regards to the final op, they also make it quite clear that Delta is to provide the mother of all distractions, they were to make a lot of noise and it's happening entirely to give Alejandro a means of infil. Kate's presence was to make the op legitimate and have a reason for Delta to be there to provide "support" for a "law enforcement" action. Like the other posters said, she's just a pawn the entire time.
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Oct 21, 2015 16:27
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Okay but he straight-up says he doesn't go places, he is sent, and he was sent from Colombia. There's zero reason to believe this isn't true.
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Oct 21, 2015 17:03
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In the end I don't think it really matters who he was supposed to be working for anyways.
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Oct 21, 2015 17:12
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Snak posted:Okay but he straight-up says he doesn't go places, he is sent, and he was sent from Colombia. There's zero reason to believe this isn't true. Does he say he was sent from Columbia, or does he just say that he was sent and leave that vague? Remember, the first time he's introduced, he's referred to as the Agency guy's "bird dog" and there's little to no chance that he was working in Columbia as a prosecutor given that his family was killed by a Mexican Cartel head.. It really doesn't make any sense that he'd be from Columbia or even working for them since they'd view him as tainted by his past associations - they don't want someone that worked against them. He's a tool, an asset of the US government though his motivations are his own.
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Oct 21, 2015 17:36
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sky shark posted:Does he say he was sent from Columbia, or does he just say that he was sent and leave that vague? Remember, the first time he's introduced, he's referred to as the Agency guy's "bird dog" and there's little to no chance that he was working in Columbia as a prosecutor given that his family was killed by a Mexican Cartel head.. It really doesn't make any sense that he'd be from Columbia or even working for them since they'd view him as tainted by his past associations - they don't want someone that worked against them. He says the name of the city he was sent from (I don't remember it and dialogue transcripts are not available yet) and Kate responds that he was sent from Columbia. Given his skills as a hitman, I don't assume his family was killed recently. I assume he was a Mexican and was practicing law in Mexico when the Juarez Cartel killed his family. He was probably then recruited by the Colombians because of his willingness to visit vengeance on the Mexican Cartel. This is a pretty standard way of recruiting people to your cause. I'm confused why you say that a Colombian Cartel would view him as tainted. Working against a Mexican Cartel is not working against the Colombian Cartel. Organized crime regularly recruits and corrupts people with mutual enemies, including lawyers and people in law enforcement. The movie explicitly states that he is from Colombia and working for a Colombian Cartel, and there's no reason to think this is misdirection. It strongly reflects the actual politics of the War on Drugs. edit: v Thanks. I really, really, really want to watch this again (many times) but I can't really afford to go back to the theater. The bluray cannot come soon enough. Snak fucked around with this message at 18:05 on Oct 21, 2015 |
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Oct 21, 2015 17:49
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Snak posted:He says the name of the city he was sent from Cartagena
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Oct 21, 2015 17:50
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This thread is starting to look like the documents one would get if they did a FOIA request on this operation -- heavily redacted.
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Oct 21, 2015 17:58
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Now I'm going to have to watch the movie again. SUCH A TERRIBLE CHORE
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Oct 21, 2015 18:03
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It was pretty vague why he was j. Columbia, but he definitely knew the Mexican government lawyer at the station and speaks Spanish with. Specifically northern Mexican accent. It would make more sense if he was there coordinating with the Colombian cartels or killing other people involved with his family's murder than that he was himself a Columbian. Otherwise, the whole note about him being a prosecutor makes no sense.
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Oct 21, 2015 19:09
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Yeah, I did not think "Where were you sent from?" -> "Cartegena" was meant to imply that he was Colombian.
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Oct 21, 2015 19:21
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Man, does this movie beat you as badly as it does its main character. I'm not sure where I stand on that yet. Some people on my theater probably thought it was a regular action movie, cause I don't see any other reason you bring you SO out on a movie like this.
Honest Thief fucked around with this message at 19:42 on Oct 24, 2015 |
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Oct 24, 2015 19:37
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Honest Thief posted:Man, does this movie beat you as badly as it does its main character. I'm not sure where I stand on that yet. Some people on my theater probably thought it was a regular action movie, cause I don't see any other reason you bring you SO out on a movie like this. Do you mean before or after they saw it? I'm sure there's lots of people who still think it's a regular action movie after they've seen it. I already said this a page or so ago, but it's still relevant: Act of Valor was a real movie that came out. This is one of my favorite movies this year. Viginti mentioned how this movie depicts The War on Drugs as appropriating the tactics of The War on Terror. I think that not only is that spot on, it's also using The War on Drugs to be critical of The War on Terror. What Alejandro does is is presented as wrong, immoral, and crossing a line in the War on Drugs, but it has similar results to a drone strike, something which is already above board in The War on Terror.
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Oct 24, 2015 19:56
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Snak posted:Do you mean before or after they saw it? I'm sure there's lots of people who still think it's a regular action movie after they've seen it. Before, cause, notwithstanding the rare case where both people dig this sort of movie, I don't see how you can see this as a couples movie.
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Oct 24, 2015 19:58
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Honest Thief posted:Before, cause, notwithstanding the rare case where both people dig this sort of movie, I don't see how you can see this as a couples movie. I don't think it's that much of an edge case. Couples often have overlapping taste, and Sicario might be grim, but it's not like, Human Centipede 2 or something.
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Oct 24, 2015 20:01
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Snak posted:I don't think it's that much of an edge case. Couples often have overlapping taste, and Sicario might be grim, but it's not like, Human Centipede 2 or something. I think it's worse, Human Centipede is ridiculous, this is a kick in the gut
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Oct 24, 2015 20:02
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Honest Thief posted:Before, cause, notwithstanding the rare case where both people dig this sort of movie, I don't see how you can see this as a couples movie. It's really not uncommon to be in a relationship with someone who has the same taste in movies.
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