Sicario

I'd watched Sicario on the 13 October, last year (2015) upon its theatrical release. The trailers had me excited and the content and actors were something I looked for in a good film. I'd thoroughly enjoyed it and found it thrilling and tense, with some of the best cinematography I'd seen all year. I really found it hard to pick faults with it. Director Denis Villeneuve's last two films have looked beautiful. Prisoners and Enemy). Today, 25th January (2016), I watched it for the second time and found it even better than the first time I had seen it. The intensity in the border crossing was something I felt even more so and this would be the case with several more scenes and sequences, throughout my second sitting. I liked Blunt's character more, this time around. I found her to be whiny the first time but now I can see more that the character is totally out of her depth and has been tricked into participating in events that she doesn't want to believe exist. She is caught up in a whirlwind and she has no way out. There are some deeply disturbing characters who bend and break the law, to play the drug cartels at their own game. Benicia Del Toro is the most interesting of these. He barely speaks (he originally had more lines but convinced Villeneuve into stripping it down to hardly anything) and we don't really get too much about the character, giving him a mysterious quality. I've listened to the score, many times as I've downloaded it and find it to be one of the best scores of last year. Next to Junkie XL's Mad Max score, it really evokes intensity and tension. The film runs for 2hrs 1min and it runs its course beautifully. You will be drawn into it within minutes. The aforementioned intensity of some of the scenes will leave you holding your breath, right up to the end of he film. You could easily pop in a few scenes and make it another 20 or so minutes longer and it would still keep your attention. I'm looking forwards to a third viewing, sometime. Sadly, for those like me, who like commentaries, there is not one on its home release?