Sicario

Sicario

Sidey: We're doing something a little bit different this week because I'm going on holiday.

Cris: Selfishly going on

Sidey: Selfishly on holiday. Unbelievable. So I've gotta edit loads of stuff this week. So we're doing four. Equivalent mid weekers.

Reegs: Yeah. And who knows what order these things will go out because, you know, there could be things that tie between them. For instance, the director of this movie that we're gonna talk about, Sicario, he did the sequel to Blade Runner, another movie that we're gonna, that we've either talked about by

Sidey: or haven't.

Reegs: or haven't, but Will do.

Sidey: Yeah.

It makes sense

Pete: to make this one the first one because you've just told everyone that what we're doing in, you'll have to do that on every one.

Sidey: I could go rogue, I could go completely rogue.

who knows. Yeah. we we

Pete: Make a lot of,

Dan: we can do what we want,

Pete: Yeah, we can. The

Dan: lot like that, just.

Links

Sidey: a segue so beautifully into film that I didn't watch this one, but you four I think did.

Reegs: Yes,

I did.

Sidey: did. I have seen it before. Okay. Okay. So I didn't, I

I watched

three other things.

Dan: I was a virgin for this one.

Pete: Same,

Reegs: same.

Cris: Yeah. Me too. I, I, I, I've, I'm pretty sure I've heard of it or I've seen the trailer because I remember.

I remembered, especially when you told me side about what it's about, I thought, Hmm, that kind of sounds familiar. And then when I've seen a few bits in the movie where I, I thought, oh, I'm pretty sure I've seen this before, but it was like

Sidey: well,

it's Venicio del Toro, right? Yes. Wasn't he in traffic as well? This

Steven, which is a similar sort of theme about drugs and stuff. So when we, I put out a plea for nominations and Joe Bevis asked us to look at this one, and he has asked us several times before, so we finally.

Got

Cris: he is,

Sidey: he is a wedding. Consider it a wedding present, Joe. Okay. Yeah. Well,

Dan: it, it was one of those films that I've seen the poster for, but it, it is never really sucked me in. I never thought, oh, that's gonna be something I'm gonna watch and enjoy. But then the pod throws it up and you go, okay, right. Give it a go.

And I had no idea because probably I didn't know what a sicario is.

Sidey: is. It's a hitman down.

Dan: Well, it tells you that in the opening, in the opening few scenes, isn't it? And you, you learn exactly what it is and it's, it's come from a long time ago. Was it

Reegs: Well, there's, there's two sort of origins, isn't it?

Cuz he talks about religious zealots,

Sidey: your mob, isn't it?

Reegs: the time in the Romans. Yeah. And but also it meaning the word hitman in, in Mexican. Yeah.

Cris: Well, it's not only in Mexico, it's also in Colombia. That, that, that just, let's say Latin America is, when you say about someone is a sicario.

They're a hitman.

Sidey: right?

You are.

Dan: Okay. So, and then it is kind of creeping over some like headland or something.

And we we're going down onto, I got that right because I also watched Sicario too. So if I get confused halfway through

Pete: maybe let

Dan: no, that wasn't in

Pete: res is better at the opening

Reegs: No, I mean,

Dan: his big bit.

Cris: he's right. He's right.

Reegs: He's right.

Yeah.

Cris: it's just like the, the, it's almost like a helicopter view or a

Reegs: It's it's, it's

a shot of a plane flying because you see the shadow of the plane going over the, of the, the mountains and the wilderness in Mexico, I guess. And

Arizona as

well, because that's where we're gonna turn up next with a sort of naive young Ta, FBI Task Force Agent Kate, played by Emily Blunt.

And they are, the score is already letting you know that things are gonna be a bit menacing. It's building, and they're on their way to what they think is a place where they can go and retrieve some hostages from. And when they get there, they do like a. What,

Sidey: just where the hostages are?

Reegs: Yeah.

They do a forced entry into, into the place and there is a bit of a shootout with they clear the rooms. There's a guy who has a shotgun, who takes a pot shot at Emily, blank Kate. And we see she's capable. She dodges it and takes him down. And in the aftermaths they're checking, she's okay. This is all done fairly believably as well, because this is a kind of gritty procedural as much as anything else.

And as they're checking sort of over their shoulder, her colleague Reggie, I think notices, hang on. What's that? And the shotgun blast that was aimed for her has left a big hole in the wall through which a person's face is exposed. They're sort of, covered in plastic and then as they start to pull back behind the walls of the Yeah, dwelling, they realize that.

Every, there must be 40 or 50 bodies more maybe in the

Cris: well, they do say afterwards when

Reegs: oh, it's 42,

isn't

Cris: 42 plus the other ones in the back room that they weren't

Dan: and, and, and Yeah. And another place they hadn't even checked and they get out to

Reegs: pretty clear, straight away.

And they realize it's not the hostages that they were there for. They've just, they've, they've stumbled onto something else.

this

Dan: is, this is big. And you know,

Sidey: it's bigger than that, Dan.

Dan: really. And they, they go into like a, a locked cellar and he starts playing around with the, the

Cris: well in

the shed.

They're kind of cleaning out the shed. And then at the, at the bottom of the shed, there's the,

Dan: and you think, dear me, what's down?

It's gonna be even worse than it is. There's a load, more bodies, but they're yet to be bodies cause it's the bomb that just makes them. And there's this huge. Explosion that just is, wipes out everybody within sort of 30 meters, 40 meters of, of where they were.

Reegs: It's a really strong opening because the plot throws you off balance twice and it's gonna do that multiple times over it, you know, through the narrative as much as anything else. As you come to understand a little bit more about what is going on in the bigger picture here.

Pete: I remember thinking at the time, like it's an intense opening to a film, like not much. You'd had a little bit of writing and then like you say, the sort of flying over the landscape and stuff, and then into this like pretty like high octane opening with like corpses and explosions and stuff, but not done in a like cheesy action film sort of way,

Sidey: there's an authenticity to it. exactly.

Cris: it's also, I, I found quite interesting is the fact that you got the two agents Emily Blunt and, and her partner plus all the other FBI agents and everything, and they also have, when the explosion happens, they're. Boss, let's say, is there as well. Normally you don't get a, a higher official.

Sidey: Well, had they not

Cris: to danger or so close to an explosion,

Sidey: they called them in because of the discovery of

all the bodies? That's that's I mean. yeah.

Cris: he ha he's also there, which normally in an opening

Sidey: scene. Yeah. Yeah. yeah.

Cris: don't really get a higher ranking person to be, to be damaged. It's normally along the way when something happens to him.

Pete: he cops a bit of shrapnel on the head, didn't he?

Yeah.

Cris: it was, it is. I It was really well

Dan: it's, it's dirty right from the off, you know, that this

Sidey: is, stakes. Stakes are high as well. yeah. This

Dan: is the kind of war that they're fighting. And eventually we, we get to find out that. What is her? Ann Claire. Katie, she's, she's been Kate has been summoned to to a room where a load of guys in suits and things are talking and she needs to wait outside and she doesn't know.

It's the end of this day and she doesn't know whether, you know, have we done anything by due process and everything? Her partner's kind of lawyer as well as an FBI agent and he's going, yeah, yeah. We, you know, we followed process and we followed the book. And what's all this about?

Inside? They're talking

about adding people to her special task force.

Reegs: Yeah.

Her boss is vouching for her saying that you know, she's relatively inexperienced but she's done five raids and she's got a good work ethic and all that stuff

Dan: instinct.

Reegs: And they're sort of, they bring her in for a grilling. It's really horrible actually, cuz it's Josh Brolin's character.

Matt, who's this kind of. Enigmatic kind of

Cris: he's the only one in flip flops as well, out of everyone. They're all like a suit and this, and he's just

Reegs: like, he's in flip flops. She notices that straight away and he asks her a load of personal questions. He married, you know, completely irrelevant to it and already, you know, she's a woman in very much a man's world,

Pete: Well, it turns out probably not so. That, that, that probably is a, a relevant question because they're looking for specific people that fit a certain criteria,

Reegs: but

it's disarming the way he

asks her.

Pete: yeah, she, she has no idea what she thinks that it's gonna be like a debrief of what just happened and they're gonna ask us some questions about the.

You know, like the scene that she, like recently left. And yeah, like you say, these questions kind of come out of left from left field from a guy who doesn't look like an authority figure at all. Yeah. And clearly as someone who doesn't necessarily play by the same rule book that that they've got at the fbi.

Reegs: Yeah. And anyway, she sent out the room again and we don't know what they, you could see their lips moving and she's called back in and told, all right, you're gonna, is that when she's told she's gonna join the

task

Dan: she's asked to volunteer because you can't tell somebody to join a, a

Reegs: Oh yeah, that's right.

Dan: they

Cris: it's a separate agency. So you wouldn't be able to

Reegs: Yeah, an unnamed agency. But pretty clearly it's the

Sidey: Yeah.

Dan: is taking in lots of different players from lots of different agencies to make up one team, but they have to kind of sign up for it.

And she says, well, does it give me a shot at those people today? And they go, yeah, that's why we're here. That's why we're doing it. So she's like, right,

Cris: And she also gets a bit of information about Manuel Diaz and, and the people from the cartel, the people from Mexico. We are not necessarily after Manuel Diaz. I know.

Reegs: Well, yeah, because I mean, before you know it and the plot has, he barreling along straight away and it's like trying to keep up with it. But yeah, she's on a plane and on this mission to go and extract Guillermo Diaz. Right. This is Manuel Diaz, who's the head of the cartel in Mexico. His. Brother.

Yeah. Yeah.

And they're there to extract him. And you know, she's, before they look at the, there's Texas Rangers there guys in cowboy hats

Cris: Delta Force

Reegs: huge, enormous guys with beards and, and machine guns are even bigger. And she's being whisked off. She has met, of course.

Pete: Well, what I was gonna say is she's, she's told she's going to El Paso. Yeah. And again, it's like another, like, I dunno if it's a specific tactic. Exactly. I couldn't really appreciate why they told her that. But she's going over to Juarez in in Mexico for, for the exact

Dan: She's on a need to know basis, Peter. That's why.

Pete: know. But they're giving her full sort or

Sidey: They don't, the information. they're not forthcoming

the truth Really.

Pete: keeping her in the dark.

Reegs: Well, there's this constant feeling and it be, and it grows over the movie that she's like, Being peer pressured effectively into doing this stuff. All of the authority figures are convincing her. It's a good idea and you need to come along and

Pete: I think, I think later on in the film, I've answered my own question, it kind of becomes apparent why they were giving her misinformation, because well, we'll come onto that. Yeah. On the plane though, on this site, on the PJ. We meet Venicio del

Cris: Alejandro? Yeah,

Pete: Yeah, Alejandro, Alejandro and straight away. There's, there's like a few, you know, he's, he's clearly yeah, there's, there's like a certain mystique around him.

Cris: First of all, because you can clearly see that he's not, he, he doesn't, he's outside of the back of the plane smoking, which I thought it was brilliant because it's a private jet and you're smoking at the back, just underneath the tail of the plane, which he would never do or no one would ever do.

He's just there hanging around

Dan: unless you don't give a fuck.

Pete: And he's, unless that's how he lit it, isn't

Sidey: it?

Dan: He, he just, he, he, he has, you're exactly right, Chris. He's got this, he just kind of floats onto the plane and sits himself down like, I'm supposed to be. And she's, she's not there. She's taking everything in

Sidey: If there's a man for that role, it is Del Toro man, and he's just so fucking cool.

Dan: And he, his face is given nothing away, other than I'm just gonna go to sleep and relax. I've never been more comfortable in all my fucking

Sidey: life. And

Pete: She does notice though when, when he's asleep that his hand is shaking like quite a bit and then he wakes up that, and it made me jump and it makes her jump as well because yeah, he's yeah.

He was obviously having a bad dream.

Reegs: Yes.

So anyway, they do land in El Paso.

They do meet up with all these other badasses and pretty soon they're not in El Paso anymore. They're in Juarez, like you say. And it's, it's,

Cris: but it's a, it's a really cool scene how they, how they have the convoy, the Mexicans are waiting. I

Reegs: gonna say. Yeah. There there's an long elaborate scene where you've got SUVs going through the street and they're communicating with each other about which streets they're gonna take.

And they're being watched overhead and there's all

Cris: also the, the, the warning, which is, was also really, really fair because. They said, don't worry if just look out for the bad guys.

By the way, in Mexico, the state police might be the bad guys. Yeah. So, so don't trust pretty much anyone in Mexico because it's us and we've got an escort. We we're And, and she still doesn't know what they're actually doing.

No.

Reegs: Or what, I mean, the rules of engagement are not very clear. I mean, she knows loosely what the plan is. And the plan is to go and get this guy, which they do pretty efficiently. And because did Del Toro, Alejandro says, oh, if they're gonna go for us, it'll be

Cris: at the border. Yeah.

Reegs: And so they bundled just

Pete: GMO

Reegs: Guillermo

into the car, into the SUVs, and off they go and they get back across, just only just across the border and straight into a huge traffic jam

Pete: they do on, on the way back to the airport. I think it's kind of, It's the, what they show is like some fairly horrible scenes of like dismembered

Sidey: Yeah. Yeah. It's hanging

Pete: from like bridges in the slums and things like that.

And it just, what it does is paint a picture of like this utterly like lawless kind of like city,

Reegs: probably not in the Mexican tourist board's,

Sidey: no.

Cris: is, I actually have this, I follow on Twitter, the world statistics and the highest criminal rate in the world. There's, Guadalajara is the highest rate in the world, like criminality in the world, like homicide and Juarez is number three, and there's, in the top 10, there's five cities from Mexico.

Yeah,

Reegs: Yeah.

Pete: But

Reegs: that per like thousand? Cuz if we just went out and rampage now in

Sidey: we,

could, we could beat that. It's another, it's another record Yeah. that the

raspberries, stuff like That

Cris: I would prefer

Sidey: prefer murders per capita and

Pete: like ever so slight like, diversion away from it.

But I, I recently watched a, like a real life sort of SAS thing or whatever, and they were talking about Juarez and exactly that this guy, there was basically, he got, they got a call, he was going out with a local state police and there's, they just find a, a, a headless body with a couple of arms missing or whatever.

In the mid, just dumped in the middle of the street and it's, it's done obviously to, to off the guy, but as a warning to everyone around that you don't fuck with anyone in this place. It's just like you go about your business and let us like rule the roost. Yeah.

Reegs: Yeah. So way

Cris: back, they're at the border. They got into the traffic jam,

Reegs: The traffic

jam's there, and then you get this unbelievably tense scene of where some gang bangers

Cris: But you also get to see who the, the, the people that have the eyes, because you have Alejandro and you have the other, I can't remember his name or, or his actual name and

Pete: Josh Brolin's

Sidey: No, the

Cris: other one. There's the, he, he,

Matthew

Reegs: Donovan is the, the actor's

Cris: He's, he's a bit of an asshole Really. And

Sidey: Steve,

Cris: he doesn't. really, Steve, he doesn't really say much. He's just a bit like, oh, I'm outta the room here, or just stuff like that. And he, he just acts cool and acts a bit superior to everyone, but he's like, because Alejandro says five o'clock, whatever, red car, red Toyota gang bangers, and then the other guy's like, yeah, and other side just in front of them, gang bangers.

So he kind of knows straight away who has the eyes

Sidey: mm-hmm.

for

Cris: Danger, really?

Reegs: Yeah. So, but pretty quickly in the middle of this like civilian scene, suddenly this brutal gunfight erupts when they get out the car.

Cris: well, they try to prevent it.

Dan: No, they don't really, what, what they tried to do is she's sh they're there and they make a call, don't they? They, they kind of follow the process. I'm gonna get out and go, no, you can't get out until they get out. Guy kind of opens his drawer a little bit, right? They're out and they kind of like,

don't yeah,

Cris: unless you're engaged first. That's kind of the rule. But also

Reegs: but they have overwhelming sort of military superiority as well. The,

Pete: yeah, like the gang bangers come off second best dramatically. In fact, I don't think any of the officers get hit.

Reegs: No,

Cris: no. As

Pete: far as I can tell,

Sidey: my

Reegs: Kate, Kate can't believe it.

Like it. suddenly this blood bath has erupted and then she's almost taken out.

Is it by a state

Pete: By a policeman? Yeah.

Reegs: Behind her, a bit of

Pete: he, he

shoots the, the back windscreen. She just turns and shoots him in the throat or whatever, and he's,

Dan: for that glass. Yeah. Yeah.

She would've got it.

Reegs: and. she can't believe it. When she gets back to the base, it's sort of being glibly treated as, you know, because they do just pack straight up in the cars, go and get the hell out of

there. the traffic's

Cris: and

after that everyone's happy. Except for her,

Reegs: Mm-hmm.

Cris: everyone else is just like, yeah, this is a, this is a success. We got this guy over the border, no problems. No, none of us got hurt and

Reegs: And when she asks about it, she's explicitly told, oh, Washington kind of backs this. You know, there's been a an election I think they make some reference to, and we're taking a harder line.

And don't worry, you know, we're expanding our boundary, I think is what he says. But

Dan: the boundary has moved. Yeah.

Pete: Yeah. So anyway, they, they interrogate Guillermo In a, in a lovely, polite manner.

Sidey: In a rather, the forceful way I thought. Yes.

Cris: And they also get the information Alejandro gets the information from one of his former friends or associates because he did say that he was a prosecutor in Juarez, or he was a lawyer in, in so Juarez at, at a certain time.

And he said that he, he meets, I can't remember the, the Mexican guy's name. He meets the Mexican guy who is clearly a government official. And he heard he has the rumor about a tunnel.

Reegs: That's right.

Cris: And he then goes into interrogate the guy. He's like, oh, I'm coming in. He's like, no, no, you probably shouldn't see this.

So if

Reegs: And the two guys

Cris: don't wanna know.

Reegs: they turn, they turn the video camera off. You always say that's a bad move. And he takes his trousers down and just sticks his boxer shorts just like in his genitals. Kind of straight in his face. Yeah. As he's talking to him.

That's

Pete: how I like to be interrogated.

Sidey: Yeah.

Reegs: And he's carrying a big thing of water and it's just impossible not to think of the war on terror and people

Dan: Well, if, if you had any doubts before now about what Joe, Josh Brolin and his team are, they're like the Black ops.

They're the, they're the people that nobody knows about that are getting terrorists. Fearing for their own lives and, and kind of really putting their, their scares up them. And yeah, they're, they're the torture guys. They're the people that really don't exist. Real, you know,

Cris: and it's also, I find it interesting because you, you clearly see that the guy, the Mexican guy recognizes

Reegs: He calls him Medellin.

Cris: Yeah. And you see straight away the fear. Yeah. He, he, he walks into the room, he's like, oh, I'll find, I'll, you'll have someone to talk to. And then, oh, I think he recognizes you.

Yeah.

Dan: Well, they know the story, which we probably will, we'll come to in a little bit.

But he's had this, this kind of mystery about him, this don't give a fuck you, nothing you can say or do look about him is, is gonna hurt him. He doesn't seem to get scared. He, he doesn't seem to be, you know, challenged

Pete: by Yeah. He's a fucking badass.

Dan: He's a badass, but there is a reason. That, you know, he is badass and we, we learn it's because he's lost a lot.

Reegs: So anyway. Yeah. They, they torture

out of,

Dan: mean he is a co fan. Sorry. Go on.

Reegs: They

torture out of Diaz the location of the, of

tunnel.

yeah.

And then they come up with this plan to, to take him back.

Cris: Well, initially they, they, they, no, they, they, I, I think the, the idea is they, they get the information from him that it definitely exists, but he wouldn't actually know where it

Reegs: it's specifically where it is Yeah. They have to work it

out through the

Cris: they have to work it out.

They, they, they pick up Kate and her partner, they, they get back they, they get back. He, Reggie drives them to this

Reegs: bus station out in the middle of nowhere,

Cris: and there's loads of Mexican people that try to get the over the border illegally, and they kind of have a trial.

Reegs: He gets everyone from a specific

Cris: from Nogales.

Yeah.

Reegs: and he, and he basically gets 'em to talk. And everywhere that they don't mention is where he, that's how he works

out. where

Cris: where they don't wanna go. And that's when, when in the end it was like this is where it is. And they're like, no, no, no. That is cartel land. There's no, there's no way.

It used to be the best. Way to pass, but now that's cartel land. We, nobody wants to go there. And he's like, yeah, that's what we want to know.

Reegs: And

some

Cris: they're looking for the tunnel. And that's clearly where the tunnel

Reegs: And it is an important scene as well because it's when Kate starts testing the boundaries a little bit more because Reggie suddenly is empowered to, he's like, can I ask what's going on?

Cause she doesn't have a fucking clue who anybody is or what's going on. The plot's going a thousand miles an hour, and he's like, right, stops it in the middle of it and talks to Josh Brolin and gets him to start talking about why they are there. And he does spoon feed them a bit more

Pete: Well, he ac he actually, what he does is explicitly gives them what the plan is. Yeah. Which is, I guess it comes again, it's another kind of like left field move because.

They're not actually looking at that point to, to take anyone out. What they're trying to do is disrupt this kind of like enormous drug operation to the point that Manuel Diaz gets called back to

Reegs: Mexico, to his boss

Pete: the main guys. So what, because I think probably what I'm gathering from this is that they can't touch him whilst he's where he is, but because of the, you know, like the, the restrictions, the rules have engaged,

Cris: and meanwhile,

Pete: but they're trying to get him back over into Mexico or.

Like force the, the, the cartel's hand to get Manuel Diaz back into Mexico.

Cris: meanwhile, they're playing on two heads because they also hurt him where they said they were gonna hurt him with the in the pocket. So they do the bank operation as well? Yeah. Where, where, where they survey the bank and they find out this woman, she puts $9,000, I think in, in the bank

Pete: Every day. Yeah. In

Cris: In, in cash in this account. And that's how they, because it's

Reegs: just under the limit that gets you reported. So

every

Cris: could see the bank director kind of just looking as

Dan: Oh, he is squirming

Reegs: Well, that's, Kate picks up on that and she's determined, hang on a minute, let's not go everywhere shooting bullets. Let's do some actual like, Work and to get somebody arrested here. So she goes back

into the bank

Cris: bank.

and he tells

Reegs: oh, let's go.

chasing through. He does

Dan: Don't go into the bank. Kate. Don't go into the bank.

Pete: go there. I'd like, I'd just like to touch upon like the, the actual, how they did the money launder. I thought that was quite clever.

So can we set something like that up please?

Reegs: With the

Pete: It's, it is an enormous debt. And so the, the cash that's being paid in just sits, just goes against, it's the, the repayment, the debts. It doesn't ever show as like a, a, a credit effectively. It's a, it's a clever way of laundering money. Wouldn't, because they

Sidey: think people are wise to that sort of thing these

days. what

Pete: a shame.

Sidey: Yeah.

Sorry.

Pete: come up with something else.

Cris: Yeah.

HSBC used to do that, but you can't do it anymore

Dan: Back in the good when they like to say yes.

Reegs: Yeah. So she does go back in and she tries to sort of start a case up against these guys. And it leads to, well, a scene that happens later. She goes out for beers with Reggie. He keeps talking about how Shanky she looks

Pete: I reckon he fancies her.

Reegs: Yeah.

But

who she does fancy is John Bernthal. And we all would, to be honest.

Sidey: Yeah. It's feasible.

Reegs: And

Dan: he, he's at a bar, mine, his own business and then he comes and he's

Pete: well it turns out he's not,

he's,

Dan: he's

Cris: of see that he stares at her. So, so it's, it's, you know,

Dan: good mates with

Reegs: it seems to be a nice setup cuz he was there with a girl and Daniel Kale with the other girl and he's with her and they go home together.

It's all nicey nice. And then suddenly it's not, I can't remember specifically

Cris: The, the money

Reegs: Oh, the band he's got, yeah, he's got the band

Dan: What what had happened was during I think the robbery as well

Cris: No, the bank heist. Bank. The bank. No, the bank heist. The bank thing. When the, the people that put the money into the, the bank account, the cash is wrapped around in this rubber band that's like, almost like

Reegs: rainbow type rubber band.

Yeah.

Pete: it's, like a, a lance arms sort of like the Livestrong

Cris: so when he's trying to go down on her, whatever, he is like, oh, let me take my stuff out from my pocket because I can't, I

Reegs: Because I need to show you this plot specific thing

Cris: Anyway. And, and he, he

Sidey: takes, he

Cris: his wallet and and stuff out of his pocket and there's a, there's a rubber money band, the same one. And she sees it and he clearly recognizes it pretty much straight away because she's like, no, no, no. Leave me, you know? Whatever. I don't, I really want to. And then a minute later, I don't want to anymore. So it's a bit strange. And he realizes anything, he tries to strangle her,

Reegs: He does.

And they

Dan: before she tries to

Reegs: gets a few licks in, and that's what's good about her.

She, you know, she's clearly outmatched physically. John Bernal's a pretty big guy, but she gets a few licks in it shows her spirit. But yeah, she's being choked and it looks bad for her. And then suddenly Bernal is taken down shot in the leg, I

Cris: head. Well, Alejandro, you can see she, she, her, her view is, is blurred and then she just kind of sees a head on top of her while she's getting strangled.

And Alejandro is just there waiting, knowing that she set herself up and that's what's gonna happen. He just takes the guy out and, and

pretty

much shoots him straight away.

Reegs: Yeah. In the leg.

Cris: kind of, Yeah,

Dan: yeah.

Reegs: And they

take him down

Dan: alive to ask questions, don't they?

Reegs: I loved this scene. This was amazing. In the back of the police car, they take Ted out and Alejandro cio del Toro questions him.

They start politely enough, but it's not long before he is like pulling on his eyebrow, jamming his finger in his ear up to the like knuckle.

Yeah.

Dan: Yeah. It's

Pete: stuff you do at school. Yeah. Yeah.

But I think, I think what they're looking for specifically is that they, obviously at this point, they realize like Ted's, Ted's like a dirty cop or a dirty agent. So what they want to get out, beat out of him,

Sidey: Who are the others?

Pete: the, yeah, who give, give us the names of, of, of the dirty agents and so on.

But we, it's revealed then the. Kate effectively put herself up as bait by going into,

Dan: the

Reegs: or they knew it would

Pete: They knew it would happen, so they followed, you know, they've, they followed her and luckily for her that they did because they, they saved her life.

Dan: Well,

Reegs: She realizes it's a bit, you know, it is disappointing, not disappointing, but she realizes she's been really naive, basically afterwards.

And she's embarrassed and re and grateful for them, you know, saving her

Dan: she's expecting people to play by rules that don't fucking exist in this

Sidey: one no's.

Dan: They're, they're just people aren't gonna be nice about it. Not gonna go, oh, no, it's all

Pete: crazy. And I, I must admit at this point, like what you just said there, Dan, I'm, I was thinking like, like, okay, she might be like the best rookie or something like that, but why the fuck have they got her in and involved in this operation? Because she's not really adding a lot to the parties as far as I can tell.

And it was all deliberate. No, and I understood it was deliberately ambiguous.

Reegs: No, but it gets, it's to the point where you're watching it where you're like, you've gotta tell me soon. But they do. They're gonna tell us in this

Pete: pretty, pretty much. But I just remembered like thinking to myself like, what is she bringing to the party

Reegs: It gets unbearable to the point where it's like, this is either gonna be really good or like, you, you, you need to tell, answer this question now so we can move on from this. And, and they do in the very next scene because this is when they decide to now attack the tunnel.

Cris: yeah. Yeah. And she's like, well, before that, what do you mean? What do you mean? This is, we're going into Mexico. This is not legal by any means that you can't do that. Well, what are you talking about? And then he just, and it's actually, I found it quite a really nice scene because the guy, Reggie is a lawyer.

Yeah. And while Josh Brolin's character tells her that in not so many words, but you, the only reason why you're here is because. The CIA doesn't has to be attached to another in order to operate within the space of the United States of America, within the borders has to be attached to another agency and the the RGGI mouths.

Exactly those

words

Reegs: Yeah, yeah, To

him Yeah.

Cris: because he knew all along. Yeah, he could see it because he was

Pete: He'd, he'd switched onto it.

Yeah. So she was effectively just a, a pawn

Cris: the fbi. The CIA is attached to the FBI there

Reegs: So this whole thing, it's great because this whole thing you've been asking the whole time, like, I like this character.

She's really good. She was obviously proficient, but what the fuck is she doing in the middle of this insane world is answered And it's like this, a huge sort of sucker punch

Cris: And even for her is like, You used me.

Reegs: Yeah.

Dan: there, there was a clue to the viewer, at least at, at the beginning when Josh Brolin is.

Debating whether to take her and the partner and he goes, lawyer, no.

Cris: fucking hate

Reegs: yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dan: like, straight away. Anybody that knows the law, we want them out. Yeah. And

Pete: unfortunately what they wanted is someone who is proficient and isn't gonna be a loose cannon or anything, but is naive and is just gonna like, and committed. Go along. Yeah. Or,

Dan: or, or isn't naive, but just isn't gonna say boo to a goose

Pete: Well, yeah, green.

Green rather than naive.

Dan: Can

be molded,

Cris: But anyway, they go to the tunnel and they

Reegs: She's

presented with a moral choice really, isn't she? Because you know the whole, she then realizes that the operation hinges on her agreement to it, and she does want to go. She's like, I gotta see where this ends. You know, I've gotta follow this through.

So she's complicit, I think is to some degree, because

Pete: Yeah, she, well, she's so, so, she's so invested in, so, I mean, she's gone and she's seen all kinds of shit go on, like up to this

Dan: She's shot and killed people.

Pete: yeah, she's heavily invested into this now.

Reegs: And what we see next is off

the

Pete: charts, but, but before the, before the tunnel scene.

Diaz gets the call, you see it. He's there with his family and his really fucking plush gaff out in the, in the sticks in Arizona, I'm guessing. But he gets the call and he's like, right, there's a car that's gonna take him over to, or he's gonna drive his own car. Actually over to. Over the border. And that then is the the trigger for them moving onto his property to find the entrance to the tunnel, which they're doing in a really cool scene with like night vision goggles.

And

Reegs: get thermal

Sidey: Yeah. Do you want a, do you want a thermal imaging stat?

Yes, please.

The camera stat. It was filmed with an F l I R S C 8,300 thermal vision camera.

Pete: Yeah. They're they're some of the best

Sidey: around, I think, so 8,300 Yeah, it's a solid option.

Reegs: It's great, really inventive stuff. Night vision and the way the, the way they move tactically and quite often things happening off screen and catch it's, it's just the right

level of like confusing. And also

Dan: good because you, you know, those scenes, you think you could be almost watching real military here, the way that they just move and going through one after

Reegs: Well, again, it's impossible not to think of like military footage that you've seen on, on

Pete: how, how they do it with like the thermal goggles. It's like you are in one person's perspective, but someone's already gone ahead and you can see the footprints and then you see. A body lying on the floor, but it's all in black and white and like, and then you see what is clearly some blood and it's just one guy with a knife who's just going in there in like, you know, in the darkness you hear gun gunshots and stuff, but it's trained fucking, you know,

Sidey: like

Pete: special ops.

Yeah. Like people versus, you know, gang bangers basically. Yeah. And yeah, there's just an absolute blood bath again for the gang bangers.

Cris: And also the, the, the person that goes in first is Alejandro. Yes. Because he tells them, I'm, I'm, I'm going. And you kind of see the, it's one of them that you kind of see in the magnificent seven or something like that, the scene where he takes the knife out and he walks with it in the dark close to the camera.

Yeah. It's

Reegs: yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

That's a cool scene where

Cris: he, it is like a dark shade or shadow and he just kind of, you can see him taking the knife out and he just walks with it just like that, kind of towards the camera and then, Like Pete said, they come in and, and you can see only footsteps and there's a few bodies and you know who's ahead.

You know who clear the way for all of them. As badass as they are, this guy is there for a

Dan: Follow the guy

Reegs: and it's still not clear who he is.

The only thing it's clear is who he isn't. It's, it's clear he is not cia, it's fbi. He's still, but he's leading the charge.

Pete: Yeah. There's one character who we haven't even mentioned yet who's been in it a reasonable amount with scenes of him waking up in the morning,

Reegs: but yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yes.

Pete: by his wife and getting his coffee.

And his son plays football and, and this is clearly in Mexico, and it's a Mexican policeman called Sylvia, who you know, is gonna play a part in this because it just keeps cutting from the main story to this other. Thing and you never, you see him go off to work, but you never see what he does at work. You just know that, you know, he's going to feature in this and outside of the out the other end of the tunnel in Mexico into like a you know, like a warehouse where there's, I don't looked like drugs.

Could be money. Not sure, but big like parcels getting like taken out the back of his Sylvia's police car and put on the floor of this warehouse is Sylvia himself. And that's when we get Alejandro come out the tunnel. Confront Sylvi and straight away Sylvia says again? Medellin Yeah. Says it.

Cris: He, he kind of just turns around and Emily Blunt is just behind him.

Yeah. So as soon as Alejandro is out, he just calm down. I'm, I'm coming. And he just turns out Medellin and that's when she hears it.

Reegs: Yeah.

Cris: And, and, and that's where kind of we, later on very shortly, find out exactly what Medel is or where he is coming from or what the deal

Pete: what the relevance of that is.

Dan: Kai, so say she,

Pete: she.

has had enough of the rule breaking here. So she pulls his, pulls her gun on Alejandro, and he immediately responds by shooting her in the chest. Yeah. But

Cris: in the bullet Professed.

Sidey: bulletproof

Pete: something that, you know is gonna incapacitate her but not kill her. Walks over, says that Never pull a gun on me.

And then just walks off with Sylvi, who he's incapacitated, gets in the car and and then they drive off.

Reegs: in the police car.

Pete: Yeah. Yeah.

Reegs: Yeah. And it's important it's a police car because I think we follow the plot as he, he drives off

to go and pull over

Manuel

Cris: also he's got the, the comms with the, with the, with all the Delta force and Josh Brolin's character and all these guys to say, and is the satellite images, where's the car there?

How close am I? And then him being the police in the police car in Mexico. Yeah. Pull over, pulls the, and he pulls Man Diaz over.

Reegs: Yeah. Well, and is this pretty much at the same time? We've got Kate and Matt talking.

Pete: Kate returns back through the tunnel and she's still having breathing trouble after getting shot in the chest.

But yeah, she then confronts Matt and yeah, she punches Matt in fact. And like Matt, like Pi pins her to the side of this light. Tunnel, like this is like, trench, quite forcefully. I was thinking like they're fucking, that's really them and they're that, that's acting, but that's gonna have left a bruise like in the morning sort of thing.

That's where she confronts him and then she's like, deduced, she mentions. He, he meant he, he's been called Medellin or he was referenced by Meine. He's working for the fucking Medellin cartel. Yeah. And Brolin effectively like, explains that. Well, listen, we might as well let these guys take each other out.

Reegs: Well, no, it's more that they plan. So his, there

Cris: to be a time where there was one every was one cartel, one.

manage

Reegs: a single.

Pete: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cris: Drew doing all the drug trafficking now is just too many.

Pete: Right. But he, because he's employed by the Mee cartel, the cia. Allowing what?

Me, like the Meine cartel. Yeah. Enabling what they wanna happen to happen because it suits their agenda and, and like you say, narrows the target as well.

Reegs: I mean, it's explicit because in the plot, you know, they, he talks about creating chaos and they're creating chaos in order to make things more simple for them to manage

effectively.

Cris: the end goal for them is the Fausto, which is the, the head of the Sora cartel. Yeah. So that's, that's the main goal. He just said, listen, we're not after his brother.

We're not after Manuel Diaz. We're after the.

Reegs: that is presumably where sequels go, I guess.

Pete: well, no, they, that was, that was the guy's house that they went to,

Cris: Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Pete: who they were. Whose house they,

Cris: that was? The main, the main guy? Yeah. Yeah.

Reegs: yeah, yeah. In fact, then that's where we go next, right? Is

Cris: Well, he gets, Manuel Diaz gets pulled over.

It's a really cool scene actually, because he gets Manuel out of the car. Is it Manuel or was the

Pete: policeman?

Manuel. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Sylvia's the policeman and Manuel Diaz

Cris: gets, he gets Sylvia out the car to interrogate, get this guy out, tell him to, you know, outta the car bastard and, and he, I'll kill you.

You know, he, he kind of, and then the guy is obviously the worst. Answer or, or question in the world, do you know who I am? Yeah. Which, if you say that you're a dick, regardless of who you are, it doesn't matter who you are. If you say that

Reegs: Yeah. It

Pete: a dick much longer.

Reegs: Yeah,

Cris: Well, yeah. Anyway, and long story short, Alejandro kills them both very swiftly.

Pete: Yeah. He somehow manages to get to, so cuz you see he gets in the car behind Manuel.

he He,

Cris: shoots manel. Sorry, he just shoots him in the leg or

Sidey: Right.

Pete: But he gets in, then he gets in the car behind Manuel, goes up to the main boss's gaff, and then it cuts to the, the pillars of the, the gaff And the car drives in to, turns around the corner, drives in. And then when they, when they get in there, they realize that Manuel's actually like dead or dying.

Yeah. And Alejandro comes up, he's got out the car by now and comes in and like kills the sort of like the, the guards. But I was thinking Manuel's taken that corner pretty well considering he just had his

Reegs: been shot in the throat, Throat

Dan: Cleverly, it kind of cut his neck, so he was just, couldn't speak to warn them.

And

Sidey: he was just, yeah, yeah. Obviously

Dan: covering his neck to stop all the claret coming out and they all come over and then he's just taking 'em out. Walks into the building up the stairs, pass the, the house

Pete: like the maid. Yeah. He was

Dan: made, who's kind of there. Gives her a look, carries on and the family are there at the table.

The top. Big cartel boss, his wife and two boys sat around happy families. And maybe you hear him laughing or, or just getting ready to eat and he, oh, don't, don't let me bother you. Sit down. Obviously everything fucking, where is everybody? How has he gotten here? And

Reegs: fat kid was already like, spooning a bit more chicken in than

Sidey: and

he,

Dan: he's, he's slowly kind of, Understanding maybe the, the top guy knows exactly who this is. I think he, he

Pete: does, yeah. He knows

Dan: The wife and the, and the kids don't, other than he's, he's in trouble and they say, you know, carry on eating and they, they obviously lost their appetite and he very quickly just does

Sidey: prep. Well

Cris: that, we, we get to find out during Kate's argument with Josh Bows character, we find out that this guy, Alejandro.

From the Medellin cartel, he's got a personal vendetta against the Sora cartel because his wife was killed and in front of him and his daughter was put in a acid vat.

Yeah,

Pete: in a vat of acid. Yeah.

Cris: He's got a really strong reason to, to, to personally hate. Not only that, he's from, and we know from the beginning that he says he's from cart, so he's from Colombia. Everybody. We kind of know that from the beginning. Once he's being called Medan, you, you get the, the dream in the plane where he's, you can see that he's struggling, and then when he says, yes, this is what we're dealing with.

That's why we set him loose

Reegs: And he constantly talks to her as well about how she reminds her of,

Cris: of, of his daughter.

Pete: Yeah. Initially, like, you remind me of someone and so on. And then Yeah. But, but the, the se the, going back to the, like the dinner scene initially, he asks, I mean, he even does that in like a, a gracious way where he says like, do your, do your kids speak English? And he's like, no. And he's like, right. And then he switches to English, so he can basically call him out over everything without his kids having to hear it.

Which is nice initially, but then the, the, the, the mafia boss effectively, well, the cartel boss obviously recognized him, knows who he is. They have a conversation about what happened to his wife and daughter, and the cartel guy goes, look, you know, it wasn't personal. It was just a message. You know, it's like we, we do this all the fucking time.

And then he, and then he pleads with Alejandro. He is like, look, he knows, he knows his, his numbers up. He says, look, not in front of my kids. So he doesn't kill the, the boss in front of his kids because he shoots the fucking kids

Cris: and the wife

Sidey: And

Pete: the wife bang, bang, bang really quickly. You don't see, but you don't see it.

Reegs: but you do see the bodies afterwards.

Sidey: I

1. Yeah. Which is

Dan: I think it's the wife first because she's kind of babbling and babbling.

Pete: She needed

Dan: She's going so was like,

Sidey: you can't do it's the mercy killing for us. Yeah.

Done.

Dan: And then it just gives him enough time. He goes, Finish a meal. You know, he, he sort of enjoy the moment back, like, you know, I am.

And of course he has lost his appetite and he's just about lost his life and he, he shoots him.

Pete: Again, you don't see that. You just see him pull out the gun and, and fire, but, Cuts are black and then move on.

Cris: And that's the end of the movie.

Reegs: Well,

Well, it's

Sidey: Kate gets

coerced.

Cris: Yeah, sorry. yeah,

yeah,

Reegs: yeah.

Sidey: She's in her apartment, isn't she in, in Alejandro?

Yeah. I

Pete: it's like the next day. And, and

Sidey: by the way, that, that was all above board, wasn't

Pete: Yeah, absolutely. He appears in, in Kate's apartment, motel room, whatever it is, with a piece, with a piece of paper. And it's like, you know, look, you know, you remind me so much of my daughter and blah, blah, blah.

And you know, he, he's pretty again, he's really good about it. Like, but then he puts a bit of paper down. He's like, look, I need you to sign this. It basically says that everything was done by the rule book here. She's like, I, I'm not signing that. He's like, right, okay, well there's two, two ways this can go.

You can like sign this or I'm gonna shoot you in the face right here. So Katie says, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dan: know, and he there, she knows they've got all the tools to make that

Cris: statement. It's not only that, I find that by then she knows that

he's pulled so many times a trigger against he killed those kids.

So yeah. For him to kill another woman, especially with the approval of the US government. Yeah.

Reegs: And

Cris: Or, or with

Reegs: and it would be approved,

Cris: Yeah, it would be approved. So, so it wouldn't really be a problem. And in the end, it, it is. Really? Yeah. I forgot about that. But it's a dramatic

Reegs: It is. She signs it and she's broken, but

Pete: and he, he leaves the, he leaves the apartment and as he's walking across like the, the parking lot, she appears on the balcony with her gun and she's pointing at him. He senses that sort of turns round completely emotionless. Like doesn't, you know, React in any way, and she eventually just like lowers ghani, just turns and, and walks off.

Dan: she, in my mind there, she's sizing up the, the lesser of two evils there. You know, she's saying, right, I can, I can, this guy's wrong. He, he's, you know, he, he doesn't take the law into account all the rest, but she's also grown up a little bit in the fact that.

Look, they don't play by the rules. We need bad asses that I can trust that at least, at least he's here. At least he's talking because they're badass. Just,

Sidey: for greater

good.

Reegs: also killing him in cold blood makes her as awful as, as

Pete: and, and also he explicitly says to her, even after she signed the document, right, you need to move. To a small town probably

Dan: where

Pete: identity and blah, blah, blah.

No, but he's like saying like, you need to fucking disappear. You've been involved in all of this, and there's gonna be repercussions, so you need to, to, so killing him is only gonna add to her current woes,

Dan: but also saying, look, go to a little town where the law still exists. And yeah, and it's still kind of relevant because

Pete: can do her,

Dan: you, you can do that then, because right here on the border, this is how it, we are lions we, or whatever it is, wss wolves.

Pete: There's there's one last scene which is Sylvia's son playing football, which you never got to see previously, but he's playing football and the mum's gone to watch even though he, he obviously always wanted like the dad to watch.

Doesn't see like the mum's kind of like doing that now.

Sidey: And then soccer mom,

Pete: they're, I think like Sylvia's lad is like threw on goal and just as he's about to shoot this, like gunfire around it, but it's, it is kind of in the distance and then it just kind of, you know, everyone kind of looks round stops and then carries on the game of football because that

Sidey: that's life.

That's life.

Yeah.

Pete: And, and that is the end of the

Dan: It was for me, a decent film. Really good, really enjoyed it. I thought it, it, you know, right from the first scene, it had set the tone.

It, it

chased along. It was gritty. It was.

I

love those covert things or the, you know, the, what the politicians say and then what they really do and really mean and those kind of stories, which is what this was. It was you know, the Secretary of State or whatever it had given the Okay on this. You had talks to the government.

POTUS doesn't like this, doesn't have the belly for the, all this kind of talk that's going on, but really it was about Josh Brolin's character, Matt Graves and, and Alejandro, and. His revenge. But focused on just disrupting and how, you know, how they, these tight blocks that are really not gonna make any mistakes, cuz they're clever, these cartels and they need to be fucked with before they do make mistakes.

And if you stay within the laws, then. They're not gonna make any mistakes. So you've gotta kind of bend the laws and go into these gray areas, think outside the box. And it was really kind of interesting account of that. I thought,

Pete: yeah, I've fucking loved this film. I thought it was superb.

What I, what I

Sidey: would say,

Dan: into two.

Pete: what I would say is, is the, I mean, I like Benichi Al Torres as an actor anyway, and he never, I've seen him in some things where he is like got sort of, you know, Big roles in some sort of supporting roles, whatever. I thought this is the best thing I've seen him in and, and not belittling anything else.

He's done almost to the point where I, I don't know if he's in Sicario too. Is he? Dan? Spoiler. He is. That doesn't surprise me because it, this was the sort of thing I was thinking, he was like, not Jason born, but kind of similar in the sense

Dan: real life,

Pete: more real life, but just this, the way he fucking portrayed the character and like with the, you know, obviously had the, all of this thing that was affecting him emotionally, but.

He was just an absolutely like single-minded fucking machine killer. Fucking super, super good performance, but brilliant, brilliant film.

Cris: Yeah, I agree. I agree. I, as I said, I, I don't, I, I, I'm pretty sure I was a trailer, but so many subplots, so many, so many little, little things. When, when the guy brings their own, the, as soon as they, they kidnap they take out the guy and he, there's one of the Delta four saying, oh, do you wanna come up and you wanna see Christmas?

Because they know they're shaking the tree in Juarez and there's. Gunshots and, and,

and also

the message as the movie finishes with the kid playing football and the gunshots, it means there's a search for a new head because that's what the argument is always been. It there's always gonna be another one.

Yeah. There's gonna be the next false dollar corner, whatever the guy's name in the movie was.

Reegs: Yeah. Well, because it's about, yeah, exactly. It's about any sort of endless cycle of, of violence, which

Cris: really, okay. You've killed the head guy today. But

Sidey: there's, yes,

About the war on drugs is just

Cris: There's

just gonna be, and, and it's almost, I've not said it, there's in so many, in not so many words. The American government said it, that the drugs won pretty much so far. So, but, but the movie was great. It was brilliant, brilliantly filmed. Really,

Reegs: It's Roger Deacons

is the cinematographer and he Yeah. Has

Cris: Emotion, action, shooting

scenes.

Really good. Really good. Yeah.

Reegs: Yeah, lots. Again, just gonna add to the praise as well. Just, you know, lots of good stuff about whether the ends justify the means, and Kate is also a really good character

as

well. And yeah,

Dan: three, three or four academy nods on this, wasn't there? I know there's editing, I think

sound.

Sidey: win. Yeah. And

Dan: And yeah,

Pete: I thought the soundtrack was good. It

Dan: the editors do.

Reegs: Yeah.

Yeah, Soundtrack was good. It reminded me of something like No Country for Old Men

Sidey: Deacons. Deacons again, wouldn't it? Training as well.

Reegs: Was that

Sidey: again? I think so. Yeah,

Reegs: of course it was actually, yeah, you're right. Or training day as well with that kind of mentor where you don't know the relationship type

Sidey: Danny,

Cris: say though, sorry. One, just one thing, I watched it, I put it on and my girlfriend was kind of like, oh, I said, you wanna watch this? It's about the Mexican cartel. But I tried to kind of sell it. She's like, I'm not really sure I have something to do.

Is the loads of people dying? I was like, oh, well just, and honestly the opening scene. Yeah, it was, she was there trying to, I dunno. Put the laundry or something like, just like a random thing, and the opening scene, the, the

Sidey: first, the bodies,

Cris: minutes, the bodies, and then the explosion and all

Dan: in.

Sidey: to,

Cris: And then she just kind of just came next to me and she, honestly, she just watched the whole movie. It's great with, with her heart and her mouth. It was just like, oh my God, this movie's amazing. She started Googling after to see is this based on a real thing? Does this thing happen? Is this real? How many people are in the cartel?

Dan: Well, it, it is interesting cuz I think it, it was based on true accounts, if not a true story in

Sidey: This sort of thing. goes on, you may not know anything about it.

Dan: 800 to a million people each year are caught

Sidey: 800 to a less, a big range. Yeah,

Dan: It's like 800

Sidey: Oh, okay.

Pete: right.

Dan: To

Apprehended

at the border each year. That's just the ones they catch, like, you know, I mean everybody else that that's going in.

Sidey: So

Yeah. Well obviously stuff's getting through. Denny v all bangers on his resume.

I think

everything

Reegs: we've watched for the pod was good arrival prisoners.

Sidey: I forgot about that one. And then you've got the

other stuff that we're talking about. Yeah,

exactly. So strong. Recommend all round.

Cris: Definitely.