Now Over 5500 Reviews and (near) Daily Updates!

WELCOME! Use the search engines on this site (or your own off-site engine of choice) to gain easy access to the complete MAKSQUIBS Archive; more than 5500 posts and counting. (New posts added every day or so.)

You can check on all our titles by typing the Title, Director, Actor or 'Keyword' you're looking for in the Search Engine of your choice (include the phrase MAKSQUIBS) or just use the BLOGSPOT.com Search Box at the top left corner of the page.

Feel free to place comments directly on any of the film posts and to test your film knowledge with the CONTESTS scattered here & there. (Hey! No Googling allowed. They're pretty easy.)

Send E-mails to MAKSQUIBS@yahoo.com . (Let us know if the TRANSLATE WIDGET works!) Or use the Profile Page or Comments link for contact.

Thanks for stopping by.

Monday, June 6, 2016

SICARIO (2015)

With this Mexican Drug Cartel Thriller, Denis Villeneuve completes his journey from overpraised Canadian arthouse/action director to Michael Mann manqué. (Can’t call him a second-rate Michael Mann since Michael Mann already fills that position.) It’s not a bad piece of work, just a carefully dressed-down Standard Operating Procedural about a Hostage Unit SWAT Team Member (Emily Blunt, dutiful & dull) who stumbles into a ‘Dark Ops’ drug task force run by freewheeling Alpha Male Josh Brolin (chewing gum in lieu of character development) and man-of-mystery Benicio Del Toro, a freelance avenger not picky about ethics or what side of the fence he’s working on. The film has an expressively dusty (and dusky) look to it, thanks to Roger Deakins' carefully considered lensing, and Villeneuve isn’t afraid to patiently set up big moments with small payoffs. But the story feels like used goods with preordained twists and turns; known to them and to us. Maybe that’s why he has everyone speaking in whispers; if we can’t make out what they’re saying, maybe we’ll imagine something fresh is happening.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: No fool he, Villeneuve opted out of the sequel (SOLDADO).

No comments: