I think the biggest part of kate is that she isn’t naive, at least towards the middle of the movie, but she chooses to be ignorant. She knows exactly what the cartel will do, and what they do to normal people. The house raid, Alejandro’s family, the dirty cop, her superiors telling her that there are no rules. She’s trying to rationalize everything under some misplaced sense of justice and moral superiority. That she’ll never be them, instead of understanding that people like Matt and Alejandro, who’re fighting fire with fire, are the solution. And apparently an effective one. She just refuses to accept that, because it doesn’t conform into her perspective, and she refuses to acknowledge anyone else’s. At the end, Alejandro tells her to “move somewhere where the rule of law still exists”, because if she doesn’t, it’ll kill her.
That doesn't make her a villain though. And I don't think it's fair to say that "she chooses to be ignorant". She's not complaining about some minor formalities, she's seeing very morally ambiguous things. She's right to question even her authorities. The whole thing is just so deeply messed up, that she has to finally figure out that she can't change it. And guys like Alejandro definitely aren't morally her superior. They're also ignorant, just about different things. Alejandro is going around killing completely unrelated people like the police officer in order to fulfill his revenge fantasy. To say that Kate is the villain is silly. Makes a good clickbait title but she's not the villain.
@@garad123456 Alejandro was willing to kill even her. It might be true that we can't win against these people playing by the rules but the rules are what defines us, giving up on the rules we hold to be superior means we are no longer us. Those rules are the only possible thing that could justify our dominance.
@@bobkoroua rules are for peaceful times and relatively peaceful locations, where they're at rules get you killed or worse your friends and family killed. why do you think so many mexican police are corrupt cuz they do what they do to survive and keep their family alive.
Right after the shooting at the border Kate says “Are you trying to start a war!” I remember thinking how naive she was for not realizing that the war is already raging all around her.
I served with a couple of guys that work both in Border Patrol, and in US intelligence, and they said sicario is the most accurate depiction of human smuggling we have today in a Hollywood depiction
I can believe it and after awhile even the most hardened by the book agents like Kate's will eventually change there minds to that of Alajandro's given enough time.
Kate is how we want to see the world, how we hope it is. Matt and Alejandro is how the world actually is. It ain't black and white, it's just gray. "Medellin refers to a time when one group controlled every aspect of the drug trade. Providing a measure of order. That we can control. And until someone figures out how to convince 20 percent of the US population to stop smoking and snorting this shit, order is the best we can hope for... Alejandro is working to return that order."
DEA and mexican Federal Police cooperated with the Cartel de Sinaloa (El Chapo, El Mayo) to fight against Los Zetas and the Beltrán-Leyva brothers, in the well known Guerra contra el Narco imposed by expresident Felipe Calderón, that's how Juárez and all of Mexico started getting worse and worse over the last 14 years I think it nods this events
@@cesarcampos8950 agreed, the CIA is behind this, mexicans have no idea calderon was just a puppet and not by choice, hes smart enough to do what US Gov says or else... they make you a dictator or an enemy of the world and get you killed.
1:28 Matt is aiming at managing the chaos to an acceptable level, whatever the cost. Alejandro is aiming at avenging his family, whatever the cost. Kate is aiming at maintaining the rule of law, whatever the cost. Matt and Alejandro are using each other to achieve their own ends. Matt is using Kate. Alejandro is if anything sympathetic to Kate because he is cynical about the relationship between Matt and himself - he regards her as naïve and unready. About the cartels, because she has not had a daughter dissolved in a vat of acid and about Matt too, because she thinks he is also on her side. He tells her at the end that she is living in a land of wolves, and she is not a wolf. Kate is not the villain. She is the third side of the triangle struggling against each other for the best possible justice. She prioritises protecting the innocent. Alejandro prioritises punishing the guilty. Matt's priority is that whatever way it ends up, it happens in a quiet and orderly fashion.
True but some moments simply don't make sense at all, because she acts out of character, if her character is supposed to be able to think ahead and not act impulsively. How she couldn't see the angle with long game and the bank and all. It's as if she went straight from high school to this assignment. Not for a second can we imagine her as being uniquely chosen to be the right person for this job, or to have had any non-office experiences. Don't even get me started on how dumb it was to make her unaware that the whole thing was greenlit by everyone above her. And her and the black dude's ego! 'They sidelined us so let's ruin this whole multi year operation that cost dozens of human lives in order to prevent murder of thousands more in years to come'. Ugh, I hope the third movie will be good.
I think the whole point of this movie is moral ambiguity. There is no real 'hero' or 'villain' here because that is exactly what the movie tries to dispel. This analysis missed the entire point of the movie in insisting on the traditional sense of hero vs villain in telling a story.
Randolph Sturling Really? Whoaw my doctor said that my autism is very mild people will hardly notice it. Yep Mom was worried but now she is proud of my ability to comment on you tube channel to express my opinion. Ive been a really good boy trying to keep my infirm intellect on the down low! You sir must be a very observant internet person to notice, especially since my mom told me that idiots and imbeciles are a plenty in the internet i will blend just right in.
The analysis tries to break it down pretentiously, thinking that a movie that's so grey in morality is about black and white morality. To paint anyone as a clear cut good guy or clear cut bad guy in this movie is a huge mistake as a viewer when approaching the movie. There is no one to root for, in the end we'll all just accept it as a part of our daily lives, which is why the soccer game continues playing normally after the gunfire is heard. Morality doesn't live in a place with no morals, so to even start off with "good" vs "bad" as the definitive concepts are a mistake. I think they wanted a more provactive title to get more clicks, because the video itself and the observations are pedestrian and things everyone was supposed to notice.
I think you folks miss the point as well - there is a clear good guy - us. The message is focused more on methods - as driven home multiple times during the movie. There is a way to handle the cartel - and its not through standard law enforcememt ops. The female was appropriately identified as the problem - she was the weak link. She couldn't adapt and became a liability.
very interesting. I think she also represents the ever looming opinion of the American public that wants results without the willingness to do what is required to achieve them, and judgement over those who do. Her lens is tinted by the 'good guy' image in Hollywood media and her perspective is removed from the reality of the situation.
Except the problem is that she's also expressing concern about giving too much unchecked power that has almost no accountability. People will scream and cry about government corruption, but then cheer on these same people playing fast and loose with assassinations and meddling with underworld power structures. Like, they wanted to give the Columbian cartels the power because they were considered easier to control.... so what happens when they suddenly aren't easy to control and another Pablo Escobar situation happens?
@@DemothHymside Which is unreasonable considering nobody involved is involved with any underground syndicate of any sort. Alejandro doesn't want to start his own cartel, he just wants to kill the guys that murdered his family. Kate was just out of her league and way over her head, a sheep in a land of wolves.
@@akneegrow6152 , yeah, and in the second film we see that their actions did jack shit but allow others to fill that power vacuum and continue terrorizing everything.
Exactly, Sicario is the real deal. No Villain, no hero ... only interests and bullets. That is how War works, no good guys or bad guys. Only interests... The rest is Hollywood...
@@mikejunior211 according to the cartel, the Americans were the reason why they act that way. So in that way they are victims too. He even said "where did you think we learned from?" I agree in what the others said, there is no such thing as bad or good. What you see as bad will always have another person see it as good. No way for you to objectively/factually prove your opinions are the factual truths.
@@rabbitazteca23 With all due respect, yours got to be the most idiotic take I have ever read in the internet. I am very sorry, because I never try to be mean on purpose, and I always try not to insult anyone, even those who deserve being insulted but, oh boy, I cannot believe that people can miss the mark so badly in something as simple as an entertainment form of art such as a film. The part where the cartel boss told Alejandro "where do you think we learned it from" He was obviously referring to the Colombian cartels. He was trying to psychologically negotiate with Alejandro. He believed he was working for the Medellin cartel The Juarez cartel boss was telling Alejandro that he was not better than him, because he was now an assassin. And all the torture techniques the cartels do they learned it from the Colombian cartels during the 80's and 90's. This has a lot of sense if we remember that the Colombians had the monopoly of drug trafficking back in the 20th century while Mexico was just a bridge, later the Mexicans betrayed the Colombians and created the Juarez, Sonora and Tijuana cartels...Making a lot of enemies in the process...It was left unclear if Alejandro was still working for the Colombians or that was only assumed by Diaz. In any case The CIA was the one using Alejandro to kill Diaz, although he had personal motives...But Diaz wasn't sure of this and assumed he was sent by the Colombian cartels bosses for whom Diaz himself worked decades ago, hence the "who do we learned it from" comment. However and In summary, even entertaining the idea that the drug cartels are not the bad guys is totally moronic...of course everyone has a dark side and a good side...But just because even monsters like Ted Bundy or Charles Manson might have had a good side that doesn't make then less of a monster. The drug cartel boss said "It was not personal" meaning it was just business to kill and torture innocent people... He himself was after all still capable of show love...(towards his wife and children), while other people's wives and children was worth to kill and torture because it was just business... This doesn't make him less of a monster. Granted, we all have a dark side, but the good overshadows the bad for the vast majority of us... For others is the opposite...That makes the difference of who is good and who is bad... And thinking that the drug cartels and the DEA officers are all in-distinctively good and bad is beyond stupid. Again I'm very sorry if I come out as belligerent, but I'm flabbergasted when people can have such wrong takes on things that (for the most part) are crystal clear.
She's not the villain. She's a representation of us, the spectators. We uncover this dark twisted world through her eyes. She is the law abiding, FBI hero that doesnt understand the rules of the game and her naivety is constantly faced with the harsh reality.
Well for many of the major fans of the film, who are ex-military or law enforcement, her portrayal is often mocked as annoying and warped to rally people behind the notion that war is bad. Yes, I agree war isn’t a fun or enjoyable concept, but it’s sadly a necessity in our world. People who work in these fields need to understand that there are no rules in war. There is no black and white. We aren’t expected to fight against the enemy with a book. Civilians don’t understand that without these people, we wouldn’t have the luxuries we have grown accustomed to. We wouldn’t be here sitting on our phones watching UA-cam all day or taking our dogs on walks through the park. These people protect our nation security and often times have to do shady things to do so. I’m not going to be so quick to judge a field that I don’t fully understand. My father always told me the stories about his time in the special forces but he never brushed upon the truth of what he had to do at certain moments. I understood that it was probably for the betterment of my sanity. I respect those who lose their morality in order to do the tough things others won’t do.
@@memesouls8653 I get your point. I completely agree that war is a necessary means to end evil shit such as cartels. She represents the civilian part of the world but i dont think she is a villain, shes just naive. I will always respect american soldiers and I admire your country's patriotism, my father served with americans many times.
@@neymarmessironaldo5881 My father actually served with the Singapore special forces and worked along side Americans. Also yeah I agree her character isn’t the villain per say, but she’s definitely an obstacle for the protagonists and is often a liability.
Lol... since the joke of Vietnam, never understood why America stepped off soil for anything, not sure you ever helped, or didn't start wars for endless stupid reason... Not against military, but you're all fighting the rich overlords wars, while thinking you saved the world... Nothing about the middle east had a point, and this movie shows you that its clearly being started for money and control. This movie doesn't put military in a good light, its flat out showing you how bad it is... But yes let's play c.o.d and jer k ourselves off
I find the suggestion she's the villain kind of warped tbh. She's the audience, but also the audience's ideals. She's not just FBI, she's HRT, they're tough as fuck. They're the best of the best at what they do. But they work within the legal parameters of what we the public expect of these elite officers. When people complain Kate isn't tough enough, she should harden up they don't get what the film is telling us. This isn't Hollywood. She isn't a Hollywood action hero. Nor should she be. So to suggest she's the villain BECAUSE she doesn't adhere to Hollywood action hero tropes is kind of disturbing imo.
@@libextremist This is kind of the point of the disconnect when you compare this to other more Hollywood type films. In these kind of films Kate's role is to introduce us (the audience) to the world that's being revealed. Using the hero's journey as an example in films like SW or LotR the hero experiences something, grows and returns changed and transformed. In those films what they've transformed into is that more hero trope (they win and return victors). That's a satisfying hero arc and it's why it's used repeatedly. But that's not what Sicario is about and is why people don't feel satisfied with her character. The line: "You are not a wolf, and this is a land of wolves now." people think is cool. It's not meant to be cool. And maybe that's one of Sicario's downfalls, like American History X, its framing is sometimes at odds with its message.
She was not in the land of wolves, she was in the land of hyenas and she was not capable to understand it. Alejandro has said it a the beginning of the movie "Your American Eyes Will Not Understand" She is the antagonist,yes,but not the villain. She was scared to be a criminal so she got in panic.
Which is a problematic take when you have war criminals like Edward Gallagher, soldiers who believe that they can operate outside the law in order for a greater good. This video inherently promotes a worldview where soldiers are not to be held accountable for their actions because they, not their civilian oversight actually know what needs to be done on the ground. But in reality what did Brolins team accomplish in the long run, the assassination of one drug lord will lead to more violence and countless death of Innocents in the power vacuum. We are supposed to empathize with Kate's perspective that believes what is going on is wrong, because it is wrong! The whole operation was morally dubious and even moreso legally. People like Graver and her FBI boss are the ones making the situation worse because in a path towards ridding the cartels and their violence, they commit the same injustices so that makes them hypocrites as well.
@Music Channel, I Guess it may seem like they have achieved nothing but thats only because the Cartel literally runs that country aka you are at war with the country of Mexico without declaring official war. If it was an official war and our military was sent in to exterminate the Cartel you bet your ass the drug problem would lessen but thats not what the heads of these agencies want at the end of the day. They make money off this trade just as much as the Cartel and I guarantee the Cartel only views these small squads stirring shit up as another hindrance rather than a threat.
Can't get behind this take at all. The twist of this film isn't that she's the villain and not the hero. It's that Alejandro is the protagonist, and she (we) just thinks she's the protagonist, and is actually a powerless observer. A representative of the law refusing to resort to trickery, murder, and mayhem to achieve their goals is not a villain, not by any stretch of the imagination. What Kate runs into is the fact that her way of doing things---legally, above board, and beyond reproach---is not working. It's not that she's ignoring getting results in favor of "her" way of doing things. She is operating within what she has been taught is the letter of the law. Moreover, she's lied to (certainly and at least by omission) about what the task force is really doing. At the end of the day, all Kate is guilty of is refusing to sink to the level of the true villains---that is, picking lethal fights ("dramatically overreacting"), torturing prisoners, and turning loose a noncitizen assassin to murder the villain (and his entire family, including children)---to get some results. Results that in no way brings peace or saves lives on either side of the border, not really. It just ostensibly makes the situation slightly more manageable on the US side of the equation. This is exactly why Alejandro's last words are to admonish Kate to go somewhere far from the border, some small town where the rule of law still exists---someplace her ideals can still be practiced and result in justice.
"Villain" is a stretch. She is fundamentally a good person and that's what puts her at odds with the others. She's trying to force a line between good and evil on to a brutal reality that will not comply, and is unwilling to make the internal moral compromise that Matt and Alejandro have made. It's like "No Russian" from MW2, where the CO tells the undercover agent "It will cost you a piece of yourself". You can't blame her if that's a piece she does not want to part with. You can't blame Matt and Alejandro for making the choice they did. They movie intentionally ends leaving us feel uncomfortable, and ultimately nothing is resolved, because that eternal question "do the ends justify the means?" will itself never be definitively resolved.
Beautiful analysis. Kate definitely is NOT the villain. Most everybody other than Kate and her partner operate in the gray area. That's what makes this movie so interesting. Good and evil are too simple to define the folks fighting this war. Perspective is everything in this movie.
She's weak and nice and that makes her a danger. She has no control over her desired outcomes and that makes her without agency and therefore either redundant or ... more of a danger than useful or helpful. God said the meek shall inherit the earth. The original meaning of the word meek reads thus ... he who knows how to handle or use his weapon but keeps it sheathed and ready. The strong will inherit, the determined, those who know what needs to get done and have that as a goal, not, doing it by the book.
@@TheCompleteGuitarist She's definitely not week she's HRT, which is like DEVGRU for police. And she is definitely meek, meaning she has discipline to do things by the book and not be brash. The problem is, in the movie she is always being thrown in situations where you must go outside the book, even a little and she seems to falter there.
i don't know if u can categorize her as the villain per se, but hear me out. when u read marx's communist books, every thing seems great, it should work perfectly, but when u take it to the practice in countries like cuba or venezuela, it doesnt work, because pragmatically is impossible. is the same as Kate, she wants to go by the book, but she is so far out of reality, that she doesnt know that pragmatically her ways are not going to work. is she naive? yes. is she the villain? I dont know, but we know for sure that her ways are not going to work, the same as the ways of the left won't work in the world.
She may not have been an intentional villian but a villain none the less. She was more interested in ending the joint taskforce than bringing down the cartel. She is Batman and the cartel is her Joker.
There's a lot of good observations here about her character, but I think that classifying her as a "villain" misses the point of the film and her character arc. First off, the film exists in a moral gray area so terms like "heroes" and "villains" can't really be applied. The characters can only be classified as protagonist and antagonist, both of those terms refer to their function in the story and not necessarily their moral standing. On the surface the movie is about US drug enforcement agents vs. cartels, but really the cartels exist in the film's background. They're just there to inform the setting and provide a sense of danger. None of the cartel members (except Silvio, the police officer working with the cartel) are fleshed out characters. That's because at it's core the film is actually about the battle of morality between Kate and Matt/Alejandro (but I think we all knew that). I disagree with the assertion that Alejandro can be the protagonist because he has no character arc. Any change his character went through happened off-screen before the start of the film. So functionally him and Matt are both foils (and thus antagonists) to Kate. If we were to apply a moral standing to them, they'd be anti-heroes at best. Kate is in fact the protagonist because she's the only character that has an arc within the story. Her story arc is complete in the final scene when she signs the documents and points her gun at Alejandro. When she signs the documents legitimizing the operation, she did so under duress because Alejandro had a gun to her head. Her lowering her gun at him later is her making a choice to accept of his methods and let go of her naïveté as well. That's the significance of that scene. TL;DR: Kate's not a villain because the film exists in a morally bleak setting where heroes and villain don't really exist and she eventually accepts Alejandro's methods at the end anyway.
Thank you, I loved the video, because I like to study different opinions, but your angle makes the most sense to me, alongside with Chris Pham's. What's absolutely amazing though -- how the "hero" with the story arch and all affects absolutely nothing, while those, who has no arch do all the job and actually accomplish things. To me personally this looks like a great case in point of archs being largely misused in modern filmmaking, when they're seen as structure tools instead of purely organic companions of hero's journey.
I enjoyed your perspective, but may I add mine. I thought she in the last scene, felt several emotions. one, she remembered he save her life. two, killing him would not be "going by the book" and she would be held accountable in her concept of the "rule of law".. and three she accepted his methods finally as neccessary. Alejandro turned and faced her believing her naivete(not being a wolf) would not allow her to pull the trigger. It is nice to see a movie that incites these many responses, instead of movies put together by computers, unrealistic characters jumping from skyscrapers, and 100 pound ladies, beating up five 250 pound men, for a change.
Thomas McIndoe, you're right, there's definitely a lot of ambiguity and mixed emotions in that scene. I think that ambiguity is one of the film's biggest strengths. It doesn't really take a side in the conflict between Kate and Alejandro and acknowledges both of their perspectives as valid on some level.
Kate suffers from Batman syndrome. Where her ideals take priority over doing what's most effective. It takes a monster to keep other monsters in line, and she is unwilling and/or unable to become that monster. Sometimes you just gotta step back and let people who are equipped to handle a job, do what they do. Don't interfere if you don't have a better idea that actually works.
After watching this, I can imagine that if the story focused on Alejandro and not Kate the entire time, this would feel more like a buddy cop revenge film where Kate's character would be that stickler type always trying to roadblock the maverick protagonist with rules and regulations. If anything, it's the perspective Sicario takes that makes it a brilliant study on the morality of extrajudicial tactics and how the problem with the war on drugs is the us policies that perpetuate it further. Otherwise when you really think about it, Sicario's plot isn't much different to an 80s-90s action flick.
@@byakugan2173 I hope we will never have to see how your perspective would change if one of those cops would murder your husband because he had a hunch that your husband was a "bad guy".
I was thinking the same thing, most of the tension comes from her learning what they're up to while they smirk and walk off. All this needed was some 'Narcos' type music and it'd be a pretty standard netflix original with excellent cinematography.
It's about her being a police woman in a military operation. Soldiers and police have different mindsets, and different missions. She was along for the ride to add a certain legitimacy, ended up being bewildered.
Richard Lopez delta does whatever they are tasked to do.. we even send regular infantry troops to south America to bust up cartels. Why would delta be exempt? Maybe you are unfamiliar with the dynamics and spectrum of Joint Operations.
Dude, there are neither heroes nor villains in that movie. But as the protagonist Kate is representing the average person, living after a broadly common morale, opening for us the window into a world with completely different set of ethics.
Indeed, it's funny how people are romanticizing Alejandro, lots seem to think they would be as 'badass' as him in this environment and that he's your unconventional good guy. But Alejandro isn't really accomplishing anything more than using tools at his disposable to get his revenge. It just so happens that doing so, it nudges the situation that seems favorable for the government by mutual interest. Never is it really revealed that his intentions are to end/tame the drug war or for the greater good. And more than the average person, Kate actually represent the viewer imo, we mainly discover the story and world of Sicario through her eyes.
The film is demonstrating how there can be no good solutions in the war on drugs (it the underlying policy that is the issue). The approach of every character is flawed because there is no moral solution, as Kate looking for one clearly shows.
@@SOak145 Its winning for those in charge on both sides of the boarder. As long as the cartels and corrupt US politicians keep getting rich, nothing will change. This "war" is making people too much money to ever stop.
stu9000 When you say there’s no moral solution, not only do I understand that you don’t know what morality is, but you also resemble Kate as described in this very video.
Chronicles of Riddick said it best: In normal times, evil would be fought by good. But in times like these, well, it should be fought by another kind of evil.
Alejandro isn't a hero he will even kill innocent bystanders in order to fulfill his revenge fantasy. If you see him as a hero that tells more about you than the film
@@Kyle_00 No he's all of that and the Protagonist of this film. The script makes it clearer but the Director thought the opposite would have a better effect on the film and he was damn right.
Alejandro is not a hero, he is just a man on a revenge quest, a hero wouldn't murder the innocent wife and kids, since in classical terms a hero usually has a well defined and toned morals and ethics. He does not do this, did the kids murder his family, no, the father did, why should the kids burden their father sins, this is the difference between justice and revenge. He is still not the protagonist, because the story is still being told through kate, at most he is a duertagonist
Everyone keeps saying that Matt/Alejandro's methods were "effective", but that is not the impression I got. If you recall, at the end of the film, it shows the little boy from the beginning at one of his soccer games. While they are playing, gunshots are heard not so far away. The players stop for a moment and the parents all look over in the direction of the gunshots, but then quickly pick up where they left off. This shows that the cartels/violence is still a problem (nothing has changed). Killing the kingpin was cathartic (maybe, probably not though) for Alejandro, but it did virtually nothing to stop the drug war. It's like a hydra. When you kill one, others are waiting to pop up and take his place. Hence the new movie. Someone else filled the void and the gov/military is no closer to ending the drug war than they were in the first movie.
They were effective once you were realize their goals were never to end the drug war in the first place. There is no good or evil in this, only mutual interests, players and pawns, supply and demand, and shades of gray. Matt is a player. Alejandro realized to meet his new goals (revenge) he had to evolve from pawn to player. Matt and the CIA recognize that this player has a mutual interest in taking down Alarcon, Matt to rebalance order in the CIAs favor, and Alejandro to seek revenge against his family's murderer (and also take out the competition for the Medellin cartel). Kate was a pawn, mostly there due to the rules of CIA missions on foreign soil, since US rightfully places laws around how the govt can claim plausible deniability, but those laws are mostly for show as they still need to get the job done (hence why she signed the paper but only at gunpoint). Overall, the movie showed the gray area of fighting this war on drugs, and the total hopelessness of trying to win it. There is no end, no magic bullet, no final boss, even if you take out whole families at once to avoid vengeance seekers, there will be another one to take their place, yes like a hydra. Why? Because supply and demand. Many ppl in the US have a desire to purchase illicit drugs. If its illegal, ppl will still get it by nearby sources who make it available. Until 20% of the US population kicks the habit, there will always be a demand for it which black market entrepreneurs will fill. The US govt recognizes this and allows what needs to be done not really to win the war, but only to maintain balance in their favor. No heroes, no villains. Only shades of gray.
Keeping cartel fighting with each other makes them less focussed on the border, makes them nervous, more prone to make errors on which the justice department waits...
The more open-minded viewer will note several issues in the movie Sicario. (1) Langley runs amok in any theatre/sphere it chooses. (2) Langley prefers to create issues that must be solved by military intervention. (3) The military intervention (under uniform cover, or via "private security contractors," doesn't matter really) never solves the problem that Langley proclaims it's trying to solve. (4) Langley is a Charlie Foxtrot. The viewer should not see Langley as "effective," only different from the policy-wonk nonsense that the Kate Macer character believes in so strongly.
People need to stop implying that operations of such magnitude are going to be solved over night. You can't dismantle multi-million and billion dollar operations and organizations in a matter of days. Especially if the objective is clandestine rather than overt military operations... The end portrays the reality of Mexico that idealists often forget. Mexico is still in chaos and there's more work to be done.
Kate isn't the villain, Kate is the audience. Kate is the American public who would react in a similar way to learning about Matt's strategy. In the end she is ultimately broken.
meansartin aren't we the bad guys then for thinking drugs are okay, but not taking steps to legalize them? If it were legal, the FDA and legitimate South American businesses could get involved.
"Legalizing drugs" won't stop shit - eventually the drugs that are put on the open market place won't be enough for people, they'll want stronger highs as addiction rises. You can ALREADY GET drugs legally,, and those drugs will get you similar highs and because of this, addiction to prescription drugs especially among upper white women is high and many die from the result. All that will happen is the drugs that are put on the black market will be a far better product than the ones businesses in the US are allowed to fund and put out It's an incredibly black and white viewpoint that legalizing drugs will stop the drug war.
The White Rise you can get drugs, but you have to jump through hoops or fit very narrow criteria to get them. Crime went up during prohibition because making something illegal that shouldn't be means you have to go through career criminals to get it. A false increase in value also occurs because of the risk associated with getting it. We have legalized alcohol, and there is still a black market, but it's tiny and nonviolent. You are never going to get rid of the black market. If someone commits a crime while high or to get drugs, they should be charged for the crime and not the drugs as there are many people who can use drugs without resorting to crime. Like alcohol, if you need more of a high, you can just consume more, but it should be your responsibility alone to regulate. A lot of people who don't deserve to be in prison would be released and/or avoid arrest in the first place. Crime would definitely go down.
Drugs are far more diverse and addicting than alcohol. Your comparison is bad.... And while there is STRONGER alcohol, it's not as addictive as experimental drugs. So, where do you put the line when we legalize drugs? Do you give a pharmacy far more leeway to put whatever they want out there? There is a good argument that they ALREADY have too much pull and put out some harmful shit to the public, as I mentioned, it's not like upper class white women are doing too well with drugs.... So you put a line on what you can do with drugs and put out there on the open market - as I said before, when it comes to hard drugs, people will want to up their high especially when their addiction manifests. We can talk about recreational drugs, sure. We can talk about how people who do drugs shouldn't have harsh punishments - but pretending legalizing some drugs would destroy the cartel is absolutely naive. The Cartel would still be pushing the best product when it comes to hard drugs and people with addictions will not be satisfied with the lowly drugs that are 20 years out of date that a pharmacy is pushing. Read this for other facts on this - it's always been a ridiculous notion. foreignpolicy.com/2011/06/22/legalizing-drugs-wont-stop-mexicos-brutal-cartels/
Seems like you really missed the point of the whole movie. Its not her "personal" rules, its the code of ethics followed by someone acting in U.S. jurisdiction. She's FBI remember, but she gets thrown into a conflict beyond the U.S. where rules are rendered ineffective - mostly due to the corruption & influence of the cartels. Her point of view is what makes the film so much more effective, constant violence is not the norm for most of us. How do you apply the rule of law in a place where violence is so pervasive that children hardly pause a game of football while bullets go off in the distance?
@@average_psyop_enjoyer Lol it was so satisfying when Matt (Josh Brolin) went all combatives on her ass when she came out the tunnel and decked him. Such an annoying character 🤣
Thank you hellhound. The war on drugs is as pointless as the prohibition and will eventually end the same way. The market takes care of the demand just as it should supplying the cartels with endless amounts of cash. Emily Blunts character sticks to her moral code, like a true western hero and is lost in this new world of endless escalation. What does killing the drug lord accomplish? The power between the cartels will shift, but that's it.
She is given the opportunity to make a difference. She is given explicit permission to exercise those opportunities. She refuses to make a difference. She is close minded and refuses to see the reality as it is presented to her. Anyone else in her position would see the grey and reorient the way she looks at the war. But she doesn't, she blindly follows what she was told in a by gone era. She is the representation of the US public. The public mentality doesn't change easily, she's there to show why there is so much held back from public. Whether it's right or wrong makes no difference when you have such a justification. If they knew, they would jeopardize everything that is being worked on.
I wouldn't say the villain, more like the threat to the team and the entire op. A more dangerous one than the cartel. Se had a very bad attitude from the get go, she insisted on bringing her colleague that nobody wanted, she then began throwing tantrums and question every move her more experienced and battle hardened superiors make, she then wandered off in the tunnels disobeying direct orders, and finally tried to jeopardies the op and wanted to rat them out, not to mention that she almost shot Alejandro in the back after he spared her life in her own apartment.
She sticks to her code as it becomes more and more obvious that it doesn't serve justice. She chooses to stick to the code that she was taught, therefore washing her hands of the fallout of her actions or inactions, instead of taking making her own determinations and taking responsibility
I'll bet my entire life's worth that the Kate Macer character did not require any acting from Emily Blunt. Apart from adopting an American accent, that is. Otherwise, I'd wager Emily Blunt thinks exactly as Kate Macer does about the situation portrayed and examined in Sicario.
Sicario really captures how dark those battles can be and I LOVE it. A lot of your typical hollywood movies would have the same plot but instead, no civilians are harmed, it's just straight up good guys v bad guys. Sicario shows that sacrifices need to be made, lines must be crossed, and rules gotta be broken. Probably one of the best movies out there that can truly show you that and make you believe that it's for the greater good. If anyone has any movie suggestions that are similar, I'd love to watch them.
I have known plenty of people (mostly women) who are more concerned with pedantic following of procedure than effective outcome. I think it is a matter of mental laziness. And also a cover for FAILING the results. "At least I followed procedure or orders."
Kate isn’t a villain. “By the book” isn’t Kate trying to follow rules. It’s Kate trying to follow the *laws* , as Kate believes that the laws also dictate what is morally right and wrong. Kate stands for justice and pure justice, and this means justice that is not obtained illegally. The entire point of the film is the moral dilemma. Kate doesn’t believe that doing things illegally is worth the justice or order it may bring. Alejandro and Matt do. There is no good guy or bad guy. The audience is made to understand everyone’s motive in this film. Kate’s struggle. Alejandro’s desire for revenge. Matt’s desire for the greater good. Silvio’s love for his family. And yes, even Alarcon’s “nothing personal” mindset, and his family. We as an audience struggle with supporting or condemning anyone in this film, because there is no hero and there is no villain.
quite the easy way out you took. If they had done it kate's way then a lot more people would have suffered and died = kate's a villain and a magical thinking one at that
@@SuperP37 so you would prefer cops be ok with breaking the law? The point is the war on drugs is insane and that it's existence causes everyone to become a villain.
@@SuperP37 Hilarious, coming from someone who wants to legitimize precisely that suffering and death and say that it's perfectly ok if you can just construct some kind of mental excuse - i.e. "fighting" the cartel by officially approving the very ideology at its heart. The magical thinking is on your part, I'm afraid.
@@lancemannly so please do tell us when these killers come to your neighborhood and affect your friends, family and neighbors what would you want to happen?
Talk about missing the point. The movie illustrates the impotence of conventional law enforcement when faced with the problems related to the drug trade. It poses an open question, asking if the ends justifies the means, and tries to show us how just how pervasive and nebulous the issue really is. Kate is meant to represent the somewhat naive point of view of the audience. She is the protagonist because it is her journey we are following. Whether you like her or not has nothing to do with it. Alejandro is not written to be a protagonist, nor is he a "good guy". At best, you can argue that he might be a necessary evil.
The White Rise it might not come out or be disregarded as hear say. Then again, some people might see it as a necessary evil of it scares the cartels and given what they did to his family. I'm not saying I agree. However unintentionally or not, the movie kind of treats him like a revenge story protagonist like Death Wish or the Punisher. It's not told from his point of view (sort of like how Lord of the Rings isn't in Aargon's view), but it follows a lot of the same story beats. The plan of getting the cartels that will cooperate to unionize and work with the government would save lives. There are plenty of statues and stories about supposed heroes with dirty little secrets nobody talks about. Hell, Che was just as evil as Hitler, but niave college kids still wear a shirt with his picture on it.
The film treats him as a character becoming the very thing that took his family. Kate's relationship with Alejandro was that of a father and a proxy daughter, at the end of the film, he had absolutely no problem putting a gun to her head to force her into doing something he wanted, and if she didn't, he would have murdered her. This is someone who viewed her as his daughter - this tells you how far he has fallen. This is why the video is strange to me and it leaves out an incredible amount of context. The ambiguity about morality isn't with him, it's with the government - is it necessary to work with the enemy/evil to reach the end goal or should morals stay intact like with Kate's character? You should watch the film again, he is in no way close to the Punisher - the Punisher is for using brute force against villains, but he is not someone who kills innocents to get to the bad guy - there is still a moral compass there, Alejandro's character is completely devoid of that.
The White Rise he is still arguably better than the cartels in that he is only doing this because of their actions and to stop them, not for profit, and would discontinue if he reached his goal. His targets do it systemically. That's what separates him from the Punisher. He has a goal that actually might be obtainable, but would cost more morally to get there. He has the same kind of drive and origin though.
"He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster." I think that's why Kate was so fixated on doing things "by the book".
nope. Kate represents a type of person employed by the government at every level who is stupefied by the failure of the status quo but will never give it up. For Kate, the status quo provides her a job, status, authority, and power. She is only interested in those things. She is willing to sacrifice as many peasants as necessary to retain those perks and will do nothing at all, ever, to jeopardize them. In this way she is no different than a gulag guard, concentration camp commander, or any of the thousands of American and Mexican Federales who would sacrifice the world for power, authority, and status. She is a reminder that at least half of the problem is our own fixation on the rewards we are seeking and the price we are willing to allow others to pay for them. In the end, she is no different than a CIA agent smuggling cocaine in to fund a war in Nicaragua, or Afghanistan. I worked with people like this for 30 years in the Army. They literally run everything.
You HAVE to be a monster to fight one. A dog with fangs and a wolf's blood on its mouth looks the same as a wolf to a sheep. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions". Being naively "good" will get good people killed.
"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster". This quote sums up the movie pretty well with its constant question of morals and values. Kate may be naive and "in a land of wolves " but she is definetly not a villain.
Just dangerously naive. Just because you're not actively doing wrong, doesn't mean that you can do no wrong. Plenty of bad shit in the world has been done with the best of intentions.
There's a saying .. "Those who play with the devils toys, come by degrees to wield his sword". In short, the question being asked is "Do the ends justify the means?". One response to this is that if you adopt sufficiently harsh tactics against the drug lords are you any better than them? You can fight against them ineffectually according to the rules and fail, or you can oppose them using any tactics you wish and fail because you are now no better than them.
@@blaizerhodes I have always found that argument to be stupid af. "Now you're no better than your enemy"; you're already no better than your enemy for fighting them in the first place. There is no sense in being stupid & ignoring useful but dIsHonOrAbLe tactics that might help you win, (talking to you, Ned Stark).
Exactly! Kate was the absolute worst. I was thinking, do they want us to hate her? Not only her dialogue but her vibe. She just gave me the creeps the whole time.
This is, indeed, an interesting perspective. Although, I think it’s a more narrowly tailored point of view which misses the overall themes of the movie. She’s not the villain. She’s also not the hero. There aren’t heros in this movie. Only a common enemy, the cartel, our villain. The movie’s central theme seems to ask, and leave open, the question of weather or not the ends justify the means. These questions are posed when Alejandro kills the cop and, later, the cartel leader’s wife and children. In doing these things, have they become the very thing they were sent to destroy? While maintaining the status quo is the most likely alternative, becoming your enemy doesn’t eradicate the problem, it simply shifts the players.
You don't destroy your foes by being morally superior. You destroy your enemies, scorch their legacy, and dismantle their entire organization piece by piece, and send a message that any other who does likewise will face the same fate. Its what we did with the Nazis, so why is it now a fucking problem?
The groups smuggling drugs, firearms and human slaves into other countries are objectively evil and those that fight against them are objectively good. This movie isnt about such childish notions as "do the ends justify the means?", the movie is asking if you as the audience have the courage and moral fortitude to do what is necessary to eradicate evil. You cannot fight hardend, organised cartels with good intentions and court orders from legal entities they dont recognise.
@@oceanicastronaut2830 - I never implied that the cartels were acting in a way other than evil. Indeed, their trade is evil, and the actions they take to continue their trade are likewise evil. What to do about it is the question. How do good people prevent the continuation of that evil? Is it doing evil to eradicate evil? If that’s your position, then should some other body enact evil to likewise eradicate the “hero’s”? Consider what the end goal of the “heros” was in this movie. It wasn’t to stop the import of illegal drugs into the U.S. it was to centralize the drug trade into the hands of another cartel in Columbia so they could more easily regulate the volume of illegal drug imports. Then what can be done? Well, American politicians can and should confront their counterparts in Mexico, Columbia etc. threaten them with sanctions, tariffs and other economic reprisals if they don’t actively work to thwart the efforts of the cartels in their own countries. These politicians could even offer assistance; weapons, training and military assets such as those depicted in the movie. If imposing these sanctions etc. is ineffective, and the governments of Mexico and Columbia decline to help eliminate the problem, the U.S. still has a number of additional approaches it can enact, such as militarizing the southern border and only engaging where there’s threat of passage into the U.S. or when engaged. Another option to consider is legalizing these drugs and producing them domestically. Are you starting to see my point?
@@oceanicastronaut2830 you have no clue as to who the actual evil people are. The cartels and their minions are mere pawns of the actual masters in the war on drugs.
"it's clear she puts the importance of her own disconnected ideals above... most importantly, innocent lives" bro earlier you said alejandro is the protagonist, the guy who murders two kids and their mom
the antagonist of the film isn't even subtext. what do you think the "who do you think we learned it from?" line is about? the CIA spooks like Matt who hire Alejandro and take advantage of Kate's naivete to allow them to perform legal clandestine domestic operations are the ones who started and continue to escalate the violence.
He is the protagonist myguy shit had to get done he let them kids live know they want to b in charge he did the absolute right thing but your ideology want let you see why
@@xavianbraams4614 i mean i guess my ideology of "children should not be murdered" may be getting in the way of seeing Alejandro as the the good guy here yeah
@@Nick-jy4zf I feel like as the protagonist of the movie he absolutely made the right decision to kill them kids and the wife shit you ask me the made to but in a serious not In that life every stone must b flipped and Checked
Naiveté and/or incompetence is not villainy. It may well be that Kate's actions, or inaction, may not be the most effective course to take, but that is wholly different from the willful, proactive destruction of innocent lives.
@Terror shes not stopping good things. If you look closely you see that matts plan was totally ineffective because as you might remember the last scene shows the police officers son playing football and there are again shootings in the backround. Matts methods only seem to be effective because they are loud and easy and look cool but fail to appy to our very complicated reality.
She’s not the villain, she’s supposed to represent us, the viewer. We have a vague idea of right and wrong that we automatically project beyond ourselves despite having little real knowledge of the subject at hand. Because of ego, ours and hers, we are resistant to change even when our point of view is repeatedly shown to be wrong or misguided. The movie is a letter to the audience that let’s us know that we have no idea what the fuck we are talking about and that THIS is the world as it truly is. Instead of breaking the fourth wall and turning the film into a brutalist version of 24 Hour Party People they give us Blunt’s character to judge ruthlessly instead of having to admit we’re the ones that are misinformed on the subject at hand
I like your perspective, I would also like to add my opinion.. this movie helps illustrate how subjective right and wrong is, and how if you simplify any complex issue like "the drug war" or "the war on terror" into a battle between good and evil, then maybe you should take a good hard look in the mirror and realize maybe you are the evil one. Or maybe it's all evil and everything is icky and you are being used.. see also american sniper. If you took time out of your day to read the opinion of some random stranger on the internet (me) thank you for your time
This is why writers use the term 'antagonist' instead of "villains/bad-guys". A character can be opposed to the objectives or missions of a piece's protagonists without needing to fill the "villain" archetype.
Perfect comment! It's not her story, so regardless of where people stand on the morality of the methods employed by the actual protagonist, as well as supporting parties, her character poses the greatest threat to the operation and the goal of the protagonist.
Also, there is a bit of this in Better Call Saul. Saul is always trying to do good, just not in a good way. Conversely his brother is always "by the book" but somehow is an asshole. His brother is doing evil under the guise of morality.
It’s really not fair to say that chuck is “evil”. Just like it’s kind of naive to say that Emily Blunt is a “villain” in Sicario. She is supposed to be the moral compass of the film, even if her methods are not working.
@@jandcstopmotion7774 Chuck is absolutely evil though. Emily Blunt's character in Sicario is much closer to a genuine idealist. Chuck is a thin-skinned hypocrite with no conviction, his "ideals" are concrete only to the extent that he can define goalposts to continually move so that from his perspective Jimmy is always bad, stupid, and unworthy of being a lawyer and Chuck is always good, correct, and worthy of it. He's a spineless, dogshit hypocrite with absolutely not a shred of meaningful conviction and he gets the ending he deserves. Not that Jimmy is necessarily a "good guy" but Chuck is scum, the fact that his ideals are wholly a facade becomes immediately obvious every single time Jimmy tries to better himself. If Chuck had even the thinnest shred of integrity he'd support his brother, but he cares more about being above Jimmy than literally anything else. I understand that the presentation of Chuck's end is intended to be sympathetic, but I had zero sympathy for him.
his brother is absolutely not evil, are you serious? the only reason he comes off as an asshole is because he knows exactly what kind of person his brother is. Did you forget that literally every single accusation he made was true?
She not the villain. Institutions are the villain, and the movie suggests over and over that a doctrinaire approach to these emergent societal structures like cartels and alphabet security services like the CIA, DEA, DOJ etc..Is an approach outmoded in the current state of play. A key aspect of Alejandro’s character isn’t that he WASN’T the grieving attorney known to the Sonora cartel, and he wasn’t the vengeful father Matt pitched him as. Neither label is apt, except as propaganda. What Alejandro real is is a former fixer for an older cartel that once operated in concert with American security interests. He represents a power that wasn’t under the constant threat of US intervention, and thus provided a more peaceful status quo in the region. The reason for that - never stated but directly implied - that the Medellin organization Alejandro represents was cutting Intel services in on it’s drug biz. So not only is Alejandro a harbinger of a once thriving peace trying to re-obtain, but also a revenue stream and Intel hub for US interests. That’s why Matt turned him loose: not for justice or revenge, but to make a profitable American protectorate from a country-spanning drug business. The right tool for this one very specific job could only be Alejandro, with his knowledge both in the application of violence and in the understanding of the Cartel. So I think we are supposed to look beyond the agencies and policies that Kate represents, and to the pragmatic success of Matt’s designs transcending whatever evil his handlers at CIA may be up to.
Kate's arc fits into aspects Victoria Lynn Schmidt's "Heroine's Journey" narrative arc. Very common in heroine-centered narratives. Instead of the "Hero's Journey" with a hero who goes on an adventure and overcomes challenges, the heroine begins her journey by realizing that the world is not as it seems, that what she has been told about reality is false. I think part of what you describe about the emotional investment in characters comes from the intentional portrayal of Del Toro's and Brolin's characters as charismatic and capable; just like we expect them to be from their appearance (masculine, handsome, relaxed, self assured). The heroine often encounters these powerful male figures who make her question her own beliefs and even undermine her grip on reality. Following that archetype, Sicario only gets about halfway through the narrative, or at least skips through a few of the redemptive stages. Kate returns to her starting place, but is also in the "all is lost" stage of the story arc when the movie ends. I think that Denis Villeneuve, for all his masculinity, is very tuned into feminine power in story telling; like in Incindies, and even parts of Dune, the way he portrays Jessica.
I think videos like this are very important because they remind me that so many people who wish to talk about movies, music, literature, art, etc. have absolutely zero clue how to process the things they see or feel in any kind of valuable way and that the vast majority of poeple have aboslutely nothing of merit to say.
i don't know man, feels like your interpretation is way off. Sicario has always felt to me to be about the naivety of people in gated societies towards the cruel realities of real life and of societies beyond their own.
Kate sees the criminals as victims and law enforcement as criminals. Her entire goal throughout the movie was getting evidence to destroy people and their lives work. Kate: "I'm going to tell everyone what you did". Why is she telling if she was already told this was all done by the book and was approved.
i don't know if u can categorize her as the villain per se, but hear me out. when u read marx's communist books, every thing seems great, it should work perfectly, but when u take it to the practice in countries like cuba or venezuela, it doesnt work, because pragmatically is impossible. is the same as Kate, she wants to go by the book, but she is so far out of reality, that she doesnt know that pragmatically her ways are not going to work. is she naive? yes. is she the villain? I dont know, but we know for sure that her ways are not going to work, the same as the ways of the left won't work in the world.
This a classic and quite excellent technique displayed here that is about projecting in the story the average viewer and his/her mundane beliefs as a side character , where his beliefs are confronted ( and dismantled ) by the other "main" characters to involve the viewers more into the story . Here it is done masterfully , and that is one of the multiple aspects that made Sicario a gem .
if Kate was supposed to be the audience how come everyone came out pissed off at her sabotaging almost every chance she had? If that was the aim then only a civilian could be a suitable role. We expect more from the people who have to have a certain psych profile to even set foot in the FBI
You couldn't be more wrong. If we don't subscribe to the dictates of our OWN moral compass, to whose notion of morality should we subscribe? That of a ruthless bureaucracy? A vengeful colleague? A utilitarian state? One can understand Alejandro and sympathize with his boundless grief, his justifiable grievance, and his ineluctable rage, but to describe Kate as a villain is an endorsement of vigilantism. I love animals, wolves included. The thing about wolves, though, is that they have the luxury of being free from ethical constraint. Alarcón's young boys almost certainly did not yet know what a monster their father was or how he made his living, no more than Alejandro's daughter did. They were executed AS A PUNISHMENT TO THEIR PARENTS. Is that justice, then, or revenge? Sympathetic as he is, Alejandro had become little better than the thing he hated. In his loss and grief and vengeance, he had held a gun under battered Kate's chin, ready to execute her, too, if she wouldn't sign his license to kill. If what he did was morally defensible, why should he need her to sign off on it, and be willing to kill her if she would not? This is why in our courts we allow victims to have their say, but we dont give them the power of judge and jury. We are a nation of laws, not wolves. Sicario is a great movie. We love Alejandro and are deeply sympathetic to his rage, his unbearable grief, and his unquenchable need for revenge. He is Achilles, dragging Hector's corpse behind his chariot before the walls of Troy. But that, by no means, makes Kate a villain. She is our appalled conscience.
I agree , we define reality and we the people have both the power and the responsibility of the law. Our country, our constitution is hard work and we as a populace have been lazy. Look at who we have let run for President the last few elections. These are the best America has to offer us? No , but we aren't using our vote, our voice to demand better. If the laws don't work, change them. Don't disregard them and please don't praise those who do.
@@NickHunter We define the law, if a law passes and nobody follows that law then that law is useless. We create laws to better control our reality if a law passes that nobody follows then its a failed law. So if a law is really distant from the reality then it will most probably not be followed and fail.
I appreciate your editing, script-writing, and thoughtful analysis. However, I think you are too quick to pin Alejandro and Matt as the “heroes.” Painting anyone as a hero regarding this story ignores the poignant final scene-the gunshots ripping through the air during the soccer match. The point is that nothing has changed. Doing things morally or brutally doesn’t matter because the war on drugs is fruitless. Frankly, this video and some of the comments are disturbing because they are turning this complicated situation into a U.S. savior complex where the ends justify the means.
The US is acting in the interest of the US. She is willing to let evil thrive instead of getting her hands dirty. At some point everyone has to take a stand. Sometimes inaction is the same as complicity
The Us is acting in their own interest. She chooses to let evil happen as not to get her hands dirty. At some point you have to take a stand and not doing so makes you complicit
Logan, you nailed it - like the great film 'Traffic' there is no 'winning' the war on drugs - Matt, through Alejandro, is merely replacing one group of drug dealers with another - because the Medellin cartel is more 'stable' than Arcon's - but as seen when the Delta operator takes Kate to the roof to watch the battles in Juarez (as well as the final automatic gunfire during the soccer game), it's not like the change will be without lots of death. You cut off the head of a snake and five more rise up vying for control. Kate I believe is supposed to represent us, the American public - involved in the fight, but fairly clueless about how the game is played - she's dragged along for the necessities of Matt's project (having a fed along on 'joint operations'). Kate isn't the villain, and Alejandro isn't the hero - his 'but for me it is (personal)' and killing the innocent Aracon kids and wife demonstrates this vividly - he's out for (understandable) revenge. There are no heroes in this story, I think that's the point - Kate's journey is our journey, discovering the terrible moral quandaries of the war on drugs, and the fact that what is done in our name, by individuals at US agencies is completely immoral and of questionable value (the Medellin cartel was not particularly well-known for being nonviolent).
@@byakugan2173 "The US is acting in the interest of the US." - The US is acting against its own interest. Not only does the War on Drugs damage American society and bring about more violence, the whole drug trade enterprise was a CIA op to finance anti-communist factions during the Cold War. "She is willing to let evil thrive instead of getting her hands dirty." - Getting hands dirty means giving up the ideals that made you whole in the first place. Personally, I don't think anyone has moral quandries about torturing or massacring cartel members. But once we condone the system that does it, we're paving the way for our own doom because those tactics will one day be used against us. Remember how the PATRIOT Act was supposed to be used against terrorists? Now Congress wants the FBI to have access to everyone's internet records. Once you get dirty, you can't wash it off.
@sneef This movie is one heck of a movie. Just stating that there really isnt a hero or villian in this movie. Point of Emily blunt's character is to show the difference between good and bad, moral compass of getting a job done. Just my opinion. That's what so good about this movie. One can have so many views. Sure some ppl think benicio is a villian, SJWs that is.
Kate and her friend are the only humans, so to speak, in the film. As some have already commented, she's the audience, every question she has, and every action she makes are what's supposed to come from a normal person. And in this story, she's the anomaly, who's hell bent on doing things by the book, which helped the heroes to use her and pin everything on her in the end.
One shot, one kill. Great analysis of her character, motivation and actions. Noble intentions can have bad outcomes and bad intentions can have noble outcomes. The way of the world.
What does this article have to do with the problem. Are you saying that killing those kids led directly to saving someone else's life? I don't think so. It was just revenge. He could have let the kids go like let the maid go. Your trolley argument only exists if that the lives of the five and the life of the one are directly and simultaneously linked and you are forced into making a choice. Almost as if you have a gun pointed at your head by a mad man. Were those the conditions under which alejandro was operating under? Or did he sneak into the house of his enemy and kill his children and wife in front of him? To make him suffer. For revenge. There were no lives at stake at that dinner table.
Not exactly. If one fights against evil, kill the evil and at the end of the war becomes the evil, theres no outcoming victory! The real defeat is not death. The real defeat is to become the evil. For example: Martin Luther King was killed but he won! Alejandro wants revenge. Matt just wants victory at any cost. Kate is completely right when she fights to keep her values. The movie depicts a complex situation the causes every kinds of conflicts. Personal conflicts and legal conflicts. I think every characters in the movie are in some kind of conflict trying to find a path.
Don´t konw if you did it on purpose (probably) but the cut from 11sec to 12sec is beautiful. Just wanted to point that out. Thank you for thinking of the editor nerds out here. I appreciate it very much.
Kate is us. The audience. She was in the dark of the whole situation throughout most of the movie. She knows as much as we do and that’s why this movie felt so immersive to me. It felt like she was a projection of the audience. But maybe it’s just me. lol.
Did you even watch the whole movie? How can you watch the same movie twice and skip the ending both times? The operation doesn't solve anything, we can see that clearly in the scene with the kids playing soccer at the end. You're basically saying that she's the antagonist because she is keeping the narrative from reaching it's conclusion, but at the end she fails, she signs the papers, the operation went exactly as intended and nothing changed. The boy, now an orphan because of your so called true protagonist, still has to live in a war zone. By no means the story is making an endorsement of the operation, and I think the reason you saw it that way was because of your own personal bias with regards to the topics present in this film.
Loved watching your analysis. Made me think!! I think it really depends on your moral perspective. But, she’s clearly not a villain imho. She’s more of a moral center in the middle of chaos, between to opposing forces of chaos. A real person with every-day life type morality. She thinks nothing like the cartels, Brolan and Alejandro do. They fight the cartel on their terms. She refuses to engage at that level. The real point of the film I think, and I think they got you with it, is that we eventually find ourselves agreeing with the actions of Alejandro and find Kate’s objections annoying. But, she stands in the face of chaos. The alternative is a world with no code or moral center. Not only is she not the villain, she is for the most part a victim of both sides agreeing to forgo rules and morality... stuck in the middle against all odds... she’s the heroine. It’s not because we might find reasons to agree with Alejandro’s actions and value the act of vengeance and she contradicts that that it makes her a villain. Shared ideals and values are what hold communities together. Letting go of these values can lead to chaos, at least that is what she believes.
No, she's HER OWN moral center, with her "morality" being amoral solipsism. Actual morality considers all sides of an issue. Kate Macer considers only HER SIDE. The maker of the video above did a fine job on this short video. There's much more to say about Sicario, Kate Macer, Matt Graver and Alejandro Gillick as the 3 primary characters animating this good movie.
The ‘book’ is the Law. What they did in Sicario is illegal it doesn’t matter if it was ‘approved’ by their superiors if your superior tells you to do something illegal it is your responsibility to 1st not do that illegal thing and 2nd report your superior. As an FBI agent she should have made a report with the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility and with the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General. They broke numerous long standing US treaties with Mexico as well as committing acts of war against a US ally. Yes Sicario is about How The war on drugs is not working. It is also about how escalating that conflict causes you to use lose your humanity.
Humanity. Now that is funny. Villains rule the world. Billionaires didn't become billionaires by being honest or ethical. Look at apple, Microsoft, amazon profiting off slave labor. The USA didn't become a super power by playing by the "rules" nor did Russia, China, Saudia Arabia, Germnay, France, etc. Living a life of ethics and morals will only get you eaten alive.
A villain is a strong word and I think that's why many dislike this video. She's not a villain anymore than an average person telling their neighbor to keep the noise down for the whole neighborhood. She has a moral compass and convictions that say you can't "drive out the darkness with more darkness", she doesn't say that but that's what her character is. To her, the way we achieve justice and bring justice is through the socially chosen institutions of the courts of law, and she only has to bring the criminals in--however, the world is complex and much of the system is compromised because they make deals with minor criminals, cut corners, and compromise their values in order to get something done about the violence, in order to get ANYTHING done. Kate doesn't understand that and she never will; that's why Alejandro tells her she's not a wolf at the end of the film, and this is a land of wolves. That's powerful, because we see her for who she truly is at the end, as she ends up compromising her values--but in that moment, she puts her nugget of help toward the cause, even if it means she'll never be able to tell the truth of how dirty it is to bring about hardcore change in the face of criminal violence. She understands at the end that those people on the force she opposed are doing more for curbing violence than she ever could by being straight-laced, and it's why she leaves. It doesn't make her a villain though, it makes her naive throughout most of the film and that distinction is very important.
Damn, you were doin' so good till that last paragraph. The USG w/ it's minions are the only reason there IS violence, or that cartels even exist. Violence comes w/ ultra high risk/ high profit illicit trade, illicit trade comes from prohibition & harsh punishment escalating the stakes & level of violence, w/ militarization forcing militarization response. What you're sayin is propaganda for a corrupt system that robs the tax payer, the people, treats it's own citizens like a foreign enemy, a system that says we can't bend or break the law & let a grown adult posses a $5 bag of drugs, but we can violate every felony, international law, go & murder ppl w/ impunity; start wars between cartels, kill innocent ppl oops. Just think about if you really wanna promote that. Peace Bro
I find your assessment of ends justifying the means completely backwards. Ends justifying the means implies that evil actions are justified so long as the end result is positive. Her character is fighting against committing those evil actions. This movie, great as it is, is a film that dangerously implies that ends justifying the means is acceptable and appropriate.
I think it more show the audience that though the acts are evil, the audience enjoys them just as the audience is full of people who do drugs sometimes and still demand we fight the cartels. We love sadistic violent movies.
No, Kate represents the rule of law. She is an FBI officer who is attempting to do her legal duty and is thwarted by others with generally aligned goals, but who believe that the ends justify the means. She is akin to the soldier who knows that it is illegal to obey an illegal order.
Exactly to most in sacario law is only followed when it convenient then thrown away when it’s not hypocritical to an extreme. Kate not only represents law but a Batman level conviction to play by that book Alejandro and the US agents plus politicians play fast and loose with the law
I really liked Sicario. Her acting however wasn't on the same level as Benicio & Brolins.. I was happy she wasn't in Sicario: Day of the Soldado. Dude from the movie "Get Out" didn't help the film either, so I'm glad he got tossed as well. Soldado really lets Del Toro & Brolin's skills as accomplished actors shine. Heavyweight co stars like Katherine Kenner & Matthew Modine enhance the story & give good performances. Lets finish this amazing story off with a third film, eh? Wrap this dope series up with a trilogy.🌵🌞
Uhhhhh no. Blunts acting in Sicario far outshone both Del Toro and Brolin's in this movie. She simply had more conflicting and emotional scenes....Idk how you can rate them above her. Sicario 2 sas good, but performances were still better in S1 imo. The guy from Get Out is a pretty alright young rising star atm, and he certainly didn't hamper the movie.
Interesting analysis. Perhaps Kate was a "slave" to her ideals ( in her case on what a good law enforcement officer is), regardless of the situation, while Matt was more of a realist , letting the situation dictate his course of action. I get this feeling we all kind of start out thinking like Kate, but end up thinking like Matt.
Kate’s own stubbornness to do things by the book almost got her strangled to death by an informant , and who came to her rescue.. Alejandro, the real protagonist.
This is an interesting (and, to me, unexpected) perspective - since I just felt sorry for her and everybody else caught up in the moral abomination that is the oh-so American "war on drugs" tacked on to yet another doomed-to-fail experiment with Prohibition. But it strikes me as a quite legitimate view that can just as easily be supported by Villeneuve's typically ambiguous (i.e. morally ambiguous) storyline as mine or anybody else's. (I don't think I've yet come across a Villeneuve film that lacks this feature, which is why I guess his films seem to get a lot of attention among the UA-cam cinema crowd.) In short, Sicario is the sort of movie that seems positively designed to provoke long discussions aand sharp disagreements between its viewers (which is what a lot of us love in a movie, after all). In the end, what we individually take away as lessons from Sicario tells us more about how each of us views the world than any truly "objective" or "paint-by-numbers" reading of what it "meant" to say...
In substance you're right about everything you say about her character, but calling her "the villain" demonstrate a certain bias and somehow an misunderstanding of cinema and storytelling in general. You seem to be one of those people who wrongly think that the protagonist (or even the "hero") have to be the character you like or empathize with.
This is an absolutely brilliant movie and your character analysis has provoked an even deeper understanding of the players involved. Thank you for your invaluable insight.
That's a little bit of a reach my friend, I'd say she had more of a novice attitude throughout the movie more than anything. In the end the true villain at the heart of the movie was the DEA smuggling American calibre weaponry to the Cartels to keep the balance of rampant inferiority south of the border.
Love movies with morally ambiguous characters. Denis Villeneuve seems to be a master at it, both Sicario and Prisoners absolute masterpieces in that regard
I am from El Paso. I loved that bit when they showed tracer fire going back-and-forth across Cuidad Juarez at night. Like it was Beirut in the 1980s or something lol
I can kind of see what you’re trying to get at here, but I don’t think I could disagree more. Kate’s moral code IS written by the FBI, or more accurately, the laws of the constitution and international jurisdiction. Death squads aren’t exactly legal after all, in case you didn’t know. Kate is a straight arrow and wants justice done the right way, and its safe to assume that most people (the audience) are with her in that. She’s the one who takes us through the story. The problem she encounters is that while she’s fighting with straight arrows, the enemy is fighting with cannons. Its just not working, which is why the government looks to more extreme, and secretive ways of dealing with a problem that requires extreme and secretive methods. What I love most about this movie is the moral ambiguity. Kate isn’t wrong in what she says and does, but her way just doesn’t work against this kind of problem. Matt and Alejandro aren’t wrong by trying to use more effective ways of handling the cartel, but they’re doing so at with morally questionable methods. My favorite theme of the movie is “how far is too far to fight evil?” and I think your interpretation kind of ruins a lot of that question by assigning a hero and a villain to the characters.
I didn't dislike her per se but it seemed like her character was too naive. People were hanging from electric poles fully skinned and she is worried about moral issues and procedures????
@@aminulparvez7565 it's not a fucking deathwish movie. Imagine if a foreign country mounted an illegal incursion into the US and killed American citizens (criminal or not) the world would go berserk
@@NickHunter depends on what the criminal did. If they killed a lot of people or caused a lot to die, great. If they did anything else, idk. I would be upset its happening
I'm glad there are folks that genuinely dive into films, good ones at that! Sicario, even it's sequal, which became a very different film, nearly a different genre, is a beast of a movie. But, labeling Kate as a 'villain' is kinda not what's going on in the film. Kate's more of our gateway into viewing this world and if anything just symbolizes a dissenting voice on meeting violence with violence. Think you dove too much into that one. Not suggesting you didn't think it through or that youre stupid, alright? But, yeah, Kate's motives have no parallel with Fausto. Blunt's character, much like one of the key promotional posters they used for the film, is simply the witness, the looking glass that gives allowance to the script to set up the narrative for the audience to understand two points of view regarding 'the war on drugs' and the nature of what it means to 'speak softly but to carry a big stick.' Released later, but I gotta quote Rust in True Detective, "The world needs bad men. We keep the other bad men from the door." Kate simply disagrees with that. Her training, her mindset, is different, and that's also why the team they put her on needs her, to save public face for what they perceive to be the only way in dealing with what's going on. If anything, Kate's neither a villain nor a protagonist, she's a pawn. We root for her, understand her fears and motivations, even when she holds the gun on Alejandro for the second time as he leaves her apartment. Hope this doesn't read as me just going outta my way to be contrarian; I love this movie too, man; enjoy back and forth about this stuff a lot, too much sometimes, haha! Bummed I'm just now reading your perspective on it. Video's four years old now!
@@cummins24421 I dont watch Chris(?), but if you disagree with me, that's quite alright. Feel like I explained myself pretty well. Wanna elaborate on your end, give counter points or anything? It's alright if you dont wanna.
in the big scheme of things, she isn't a villain. she's a good and caring person even though she's a little self-righteous. however life requires compartmentalization because what needs to be done is not always what we wish to be done, and we have to possess the ability to effectively judge a situation and sometimes apply ethics fluidly for different circumstances. with that in mind, it's pretty clear to see that within the compartment Kate existed for this movie, she pretty much was a villain in a lot of ways to the team and to the mission and to the innocents who suffered longer because of bureaucrats like her valuing rules above necessity or justice. if you were running to save a family member from drowning in a lake and someone persistently kept getting in your way because of something they deemed to demand your immediate attention, in that moment they would be a villain to you and you'd be right; especially if you explained the situation and they defiantly continued to impede your efforts.
@@spartanical I get that you're attempting to draw a parallel, but stick with the first bit of what you wrote; you changed it mid way again. Think what helps bolster the argument in Kate's favor is to see her as an idealist, and that her counterpart views the solution as killing not only the leaders, but their families as well. The US government is in opposition to this, but only by way of a sort of Pontius Pilot stance. "We'll give ya what you want (the opportunity for vengeance) if you do x." Alejandro obliges this. I don't think compartmentalization, or the act of accepting the evils that must be done to combat evil itself and being able to set those aside to meet an end game, yields one with the ability to kill children. I think this alone sets Kate out of this 'villain' category. Impending progress based off of a difference in opinion rooted in law and common morality isn't remotely villainous. Also, recall while asking others to see her as a villain that the US government (in the film), along with Alejandro and Graver, pick her specifically because of her ideological beliefs. They knowingly choose someone with an intensely different perspective on how to fight that 'war' so that they can cover their tracks. Happens with the end scene, and, well, they're vindicated, because she doesn't shoot Alejandro, she signs the paper work they want her to sign, and in turn this gets eyes off of them, much they wanted from the start, hiring on a straight laced by the books 'idealistic FBI agent' to cover them. Mercer is against that notion (an eye for an eye), while Graver turns, well, a blind eye and allows Alejandro to wreak havoc, which in turn benefits all three of them because they make a substantial wound in the dark underworld Alarcon aids in maintaining, which is their collective mission and aim.
@@beanie1089 nothing changed. the second bit supports the first. it was an example that demonstrates that it doesn't always matter what an individual's motivation, character, intention or whatever is. if they're in the way and blocking attempts to set something right, then in that moment, if circumstance is dire enough, they are a "villain". it's a figure of speech, not character analysis. something serious absolutely had to be done, and she was on a team that had that responsibility. they didn't bring her on to be their conscience. you already explained why they brought her. she should have immediately grown up and accepted that nothing at that level is black and white. instead she became a willful obstacle. you likened her to a pawn, but a pawn is only meant to be an obstacle to the opponent.
Slightly ironic to consider Alejandro as the hero / Kate the villain considering he kills children in cold blood, the exact kind of blunder people who are stuck up about the law want to avoid. And then, he has no issue to coerce her to cover up for him - all the while everything is supposed to be in order and she's just a mean, obsessed, evil character? I think she's simply an antihero, like much of the team, and you really have to take Alejandro's angle to, perhaps, see Kate as a villain.
Beautiful analysis! Radical, but not unjustified. I'm less comfortable calling Kate a villian (intentions count and her intentions aren't evil, she just can't reconcile her naive ideals with reality). Her growth is from certitude to confusion and ambivalence. That's her growth. But positing Alejandro as the real protagonist, I love that. I don't take it literally but as a way of highlighting that his crusade is the only fully motivated one and motivated at such a deep level. He was a notoriously driven prosecutor. He took great risk to put the murderous cartels destroying his country and terrorizing it's people behind bars. Then his family was gruesomely murdered by the cartels to send him and all like him a message. But instead of drinking himself to death or some other ineffectual response--he combined his desire to bring criminals to justice with his new need for Revenge. This makes him a pretty unstoppable Avenging Angel. What gives us pause is what happens the the cartel leader's innocent children. The leader, and his wife--they chose their path. Those child were innocent bystanders. At least what Alejandro did was swift and in that way somewhat merciful. Not like the depraved way his family was murdered. Sicario is a Great Movie. I would say Kate is an unsympathetic protagonist because her goals are incoherent. She wants to make a difference And she wants to defend methods that make No difference. Again, her arc is from naive, self righteous certitude to profound confusion. That's not an inspiring place for her to end up but it is a much more adult place for her to be. She'll have to integrate what she's learned and reinvent herself. Alejandro is the hidden co protagonist. His pursuit of justice before and after the murder of he's family is the unexpected, originally unrevealed emotional core of the film. That's why the climax is all about him. His terrible ultimate victory, that will strain his soul forever because those children were the collateral damage... Profound, unanswerable, heart breaking. What other choice did he have?? I have some further thoughts on the film which I'll add as comments to this.
My reactions to "Sicario: An Exploration of Good and Evil" ua-cam.com/video/RBHctWjOuwk/v-deo.html 5:20 "Some people find it jarring..." Yes! I noticed that when I saw the film just last night. It almost felt like I was suddenly watching a different movie. Throughout it had either been Kate's fish out of water perspective or an ensemble of perspectives. Then suddenly the most impactful thing in the movie happens, and we're just with Alejandro in an intense way for a relatively extended period. But You're Right--that deviation from formal continuity is justified by the tremendous weight of the scene. No one is on the inside the way Alejandro is. He's paid the ultimate price in what happened to his family. He's the most wounded. His reaction in the dinner scene is far and anyway the most morally daunting event in the movie. However swiftly, he includes two complete innocents in his retribution. (I'm trying to keep this comment spoiler free. Forgive the vague abstractions.) I could ponder forever whether I'm apalled by what Alejandro did in the climax. And in the denouement. A man with a lesser excuse would disgust me. But Alejandro has the ultimate justification for his campaign of revenge... Beautifully morally ambitious, creating truly uncomfortable moral ambivalence. I wish life weren't this way--but while it is, I have infinite respect for filmmakers who can reveal that to us while we sit safely in our living rooms. It is a deep lesson that anyone who wishes to live in reality needs to learn... * I wouldn't say that the distraction between good and evil in the end is a children's game (The soccer game to me shows innocent life already interrupted and filled with fear and resignation by the cartel.) Despicable though Matt and Alejandro's methods may be, they're trying to curb brutal murders. I only saw 3/4 of the film when I caught it already in progress on TV last night. But the children in the dinner were the only innocents I saw the members of Matt's team kill. It's not a moral equivalence. It's a profound blurring of moral distinctions that doesn't erase them. If these truly want to help, they should do what Milton Freedman and do many others have recommended: Legalize drugs. As things stand: Recreational users are looking to alter their mood and consciousness. Just as those who drink legal alcohol and smoke now semi legal pot do. But their preferred way of doing so comes with the incredible moral tax of knowing that their usage supports these animals. It's the law that inspires the crime. Addiction would go up somewhat, but we could relocate resources to helping addicts. And we'd be disincentivizing these vicious cartels from continuing their illegal trade and protecting it by gruesomely murdering any one who gets in their way. As happened to Alejandro's family. (You referred to him as a former hit man. In the dinner scene the top boss calls him "the grieving lawyer," I thought he was originally a lawyer (probably an idealist taking risks to make a difference) who's family was targeted by the cartels to be murdered to intimidate and punish Alejandro. That in itself, and their killing methods (merciful to innocents versus depraved) distinguishes them.) The legal pot trade can be unethical in various ways, but it does not inspire the cruel crimes it did when pot was illegal (see Savages). Radical though it is, we pretty clearly should legalize drugs and stop trying to control the choices that adults make about whether and what substances to use. So long as we don't--we're creating the cartels. You can blame the users, but without the law prices would drop, the drug trade could be regulated, and the incentive to rip these countries about to pursue High profit crime would be gone. So who's supporting and Creating the cartel? The users, or those keeping an unenforceable law in place? Maybe the real evil is lack of courage in the political class, using a fig leaf law to show their decency and thereby creating indecency.
I love one of the points that this film makes via Josh Brolins character when he mentions that this won't end until weak people stop doing massive amounts of drugs, feeding the monster.
Which is a poor point of view on his part, because the crime comes from the false paradigm of drug illegality which supports the black market. legalisation and rehabilitation would have stopped the cartels in their tracks. Instead they are offered a perfect opportunity.
Pathetic, really. But bully for you feeling superior to those "weak minded" people who use "drugs." Really, they should be more "strong-minded" and use Rx from their pill-pushing MD -- Xanax, Prozac, Nembutal, Oxycontin, etc -- right? That would be "strong-minded," right?
I completely agree! Kate was a very poor choice for this assignment as she was far too inflexible and unwilling to look for more creative/effective methods.
On paper she was a great choice. A crystal clean fed with no attachments to confide in (Matt asks her about personal life before they even offer the opportunity) who just got dealt a slap of reality that demands going beyond routine protocol for justice. They didn't need her to agree with what they were doing. They needed a representative to sign that the CIA were able to operate locally. That's all.
I'm glad somebody came up with an explanation because every time I see this movie, I am like what the hell is wrong with this woman I'll be calling her some names.😅
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
i think the whole point of this movie is to tell us if you smell something bad, it's probably dead people stuffed into the walls of your house.
LOL
Ah, yes...a tale as old as time itself.
Could cause problems for the seller if he didn't include that on the disclosure form.
Brb gotta clean the bodies out of my walls
@@darylnd "Rent generating property (potentially)! Tenants interested in staying!"
“you’re in a land of wolves now, and you’re not a wolf” is the perfect way to describe kate in this movie
They can't even with the Taliban will they be able to with Hispanics? hispanic power kicks gringo*😅😅😅
Facts! He described her perfectly in the end.
@@eduardojesusjorgepascual1781 stupid? yall hSPICanics are right underneath the U.S.?? take some lsd gringo
@@eduardojesusjorgepascual1781 Is that why gringos have the best militaries in the world? Keep dreaming boy
@@bradleywoods3742and still managed to lose a war to some farmers 😭😭
They played her like a radio. Her signature at the end was why she was there.
She was just another women Hollywood will put in a show to piss people off. That’s it. Be dum all you want 🤣
I think the biggest part of kate is that she isn’t naive, at least towards the middle of the movie, but she chooses to be ignorant. She knows exactly what the cartel will do, and what they do to normal people. The house raid, Alejandro’s family, the dirty cop, her superiors telling her that there are no rules. She’s trying to rationalize everything under some misplaced sense of justice and moral superiority. That she’ll never be them, instead of understanding that people like Matt and Alejandro, who’re fighting fire with fire, are the solution. And apparently an effective one. She just refuses to accept that, because it doesn’t conform into her perspective, and she refuses to acknowledge anyone else’s. At the end, Alejandro tells her to “move somewhere where the rule of law still exists”, because if she doesn’t, it’ll kill her.
She's what a lot of women and liberals are: self-righteous!
That doesn't make her a villain though. And I don't think it's fair to say that "she chooses to be ignorant". She's not complaining about some minor formalities, she's seeing very morally ambiguous things. She's right to question even her authorities. The whole thing is just so deeply messed up, that she has to finally figure out that she can't change it. And guys like Alejandro definitely aren't morally her superior. They're also ignorant, just about different things. Alejandro is going around killing completely unrelated people like the police officer in order to fulfill his revenge fantasy. To say that Kate is the villain is silly. Makes a good clickbait title but she's not the villain.
@@garad123456
Alejandro was willing to kill even her.
It might be true that we can't win against these people playing by the rules but the rules are what defines us, giving up on the rules we hold to be superior means we are no longer us.
Those rules are the only possible thing that could justify our dominance.
@@bobkoroua rules are for peaceful times and relatively peaceful locations, where they're at rules get you killed or worse your friends and family killed. why do you think so many mexican police are corrupt cuz they do what they do to survive and keep their family alive.
It definitely makes her the villain
Right after the shooting at the border Kate says “Are you trying to start a war!” I remember thinking how naive she was for not realizing that the war is already raging all around her.
Women
And the war continues. The end of the movie is a kids soccer game interrupted by gunfire.
@@ima8533 really 😐
@@theGovernmentHatesYou sexist pig
The war still rages within...
I served with a couple of guys that work both in Border Patrol, and in US intelligence, and they said sicario is the most accurate depiction of human smuggling we have today in a Hollywood depiction
I can believe it and after awhile even the most hardened by the book agents like Kate's will eventually change there minds to that of Alajandro's given enough time.
Sure thing, Walter
@@EarlofCrawford It's a league game, dude
Yep it’s very out of control at the border
Yea that's absolutely not true
Kate is how we want to see the world, how we hope it is.
Matt and Alejandro is how the world actually is.
It ain't black and white, it's just gray.
"Medellin refers to a time when one group
controlled every aspect of the drug trade. Providing a measure of order. That we can control. And until someone figures out how to convince 20 percent of the US population to stop smoking and snorting this shit, order is the best we can hope for... Alejandro is working to return that order."
DEA and mexican Federal Police cooperated with the Cartel de Sinaloa (El Chapo, El Mayo) to fight against Los Zetas and the Beltrán-Leyva brothers, in the well known Guerra contra el Narco imposed by expresident Felipe Calderón, that's how Juárez and all of Mexico started getting worse and worse over the last 14 years
I think it nods this events
Agreed she's a simple tool for complex problems...
Operation Fast and Furious was the U.S government trying to ensure a winner while framing U.S. gun owners.
@@cesarcampos8950 agreed, the CIA is behind this, mexicans have no idea calderon was just a puppet and not by choice, hes smart enough to do what US Gov says or else... they make you a dictator or an enemy of the world and get you killed.
C W
I’m not too informed. Who are the “Leftists” and why do you feel they have allowed something as opposed to them attempting to fix the situation?
1:28 Matt is aiming at managing the chaos to an acceptable level, whatever the cost. Alejandro is aiming at avenging his family, whatever the cost. Kate is aiming at maintaining the rule of law, whatever the cost. Matt and Alejandro are using each other to achieve their own ends. Matt is using Kate. Alejandro is if anything sympathetic to Kate because he is cynical about the relationship between Matt and himself - he regards her as naïve and unready. About the cartels, because she has not had a daughter dissolved in a vat of acid and about Matt too, because she thinks he is also on her side. He tells her at the end that she is living in a land of wolves, and she is not a wolf.
Kate is not the villain. She is the third side of the triangle struggling against each other for the best possible justice. She prioritises protecting the innocent. Alejandro prioritises punishing the guilty. Matt's priority is that whatever way it ends up, it happens in a quiet and orderly fashion.
This is the best analysis of the movie that needs more upvotes!!
look at you dig out the platonic triad.
True but some moments simply don't make sense at all, because she acts out of character, if her character is supposed to be able to think ahead and not act impulsively. How she couldn't see the angle with long game and the bank and all. It's as if she went straight from high school to this assignment. Not for a second can we imagine her as being uniquely chosen to be the right person for this job, or to have had any non-office experiences. Don't even get me started on how dumb it was to make her unaware that the whole thing was greenlit by everyone above her. And her and the black dude's ego! 'They sidelined us so let's ruin this whole multi year operation that cost dozens of human lives in order to prevent murder of thousands more in years to come'. Ugh, I hope the third movie will be good.
True. Kate also realizes that the methods of Matt and Alejandro create a huge risk of erasing the difference between criminals and state officers.
So... who put the hit on her? No mention of that, a fairly big part of this film.
I think the whole point of this movie is moral ambiguity. There is no real 'hero' or 'villain' here because that is exactly what the movie tries to dispel. This analysis missed the entire point of the movie in insisting on the traditional sense of hero vs villain in telling a story.
completely agree
Randolph Sturling Really? Whoaw my doctor said that my autism is very mild people will hardly notice it. Yep Mom was worried but now she is proud of my ability to comment on you tube channel to express my opinion. Ive been a really good boy trying to keep my infirm intellect on the down low! You sir must be a very observant internet person to notice, especially since my mom told me that idiots and imbeciles are a plenty in the internet i will blend just right in.
The analysis tries to break it down pretentiously, thinking that a movie that's so grey in morality is about black and white morality. To paint anyone as a clear cut good guy or clear cut bad guy in this movie is a huge mistake as a viewer when approaching the movie. There is no one to root for, in the end we'll all just accept it as a part of our daily lives, which is why the soccer game continues playing normally after the gunfire is heard. Morality doesn't live in a place with no morals, so to even start off with "good" vs "bad" as the definitive concepts are a mistake. I think they wanted a more provactive title to get more clicks, because the video itself and the observations are pedestrian and things everyone was supposed to notice.
i knew it was a bad analysis when he said heroes journey
I think you folks miss the point as well - there is a clear good guy - us. The message is focused more on methods - as driven home multiple times during the movie. There is a way to handle the cartel - and its not through standard law enforcememt ops. The female was appropriately identified as the problem - she was the weak link. She couldn't adapt and became a liability.
very interesting.
I think she also represents the ever looming opinion of the American public that wants results without the willingness to do what is required to achieve them, and judgement over those who do. Her lens is tinted by the 'good guy' image in Hollywood media and her perspective is removed from the reality of the situation.
I strongly agree.
Wow
Except the problem is that she's also expressing concern about giving too much unchecked power that has almost no accountability.
People will scream and cry about government corruption, but then cheer on these same people playing fast and loose with assassinations and meddling with underworld power structures.
Like, they wanted to give the Columbian cartels the power because they were considered easier to control.... so what happens when they suddenly aren't easy to control and another Pablo Escobar situation happens?
@@DemothHymside Which is unreasonable considering nobody involved is involved with any underground syndicate of any sort. Alejandro doesn't want to start his own cartel, he just wants to kill the guys that murdered his family. Kate was just out of her league and way over her head, a sheep in a land of wolves.
@@akneegrow6152 , yeah, and in the second film we see that their actions did jack shit but allow others to fill that power vacuum and continue terrorizing everything.
If you think there is a hero and a villian in a movie like Sicario, you didnt get the ideia.
Exactly, Sicario is the real deal. No Villain, no hero ... only interests and bullets.
That is how War works, no good guys or bad guys. Only interests...
The rest is Hollywood...
@@marcuspettibone9640 I heard that the walls of hell are lined of good intentions.
@@phyzics4all343 So you mean to say that the cartel bosses are NOT bad people? wow, just wow.
@@mikejunior211 according to the cartel, the Americans were the reason why they act that way. So in that way they are victims too. He even said "where did you think we learned from?" I agree in what the others said, there is no such thing as bad or good. What you see as bad will always have another person see it as good. No way for you to objectively/factually prove your opinions are the factual truths.
@@rabbitazteca23 With all due respect, yours got to be the most idiotic take I have ever read in the internet. I am very sorry, because I never try to be mean on purpose, and I always try not to insult anyone, even those who deserve being insulted but, oh boy, I cannot believe that people can miss the mark so badly in something as simple as an entertainment form of art such as a film.
The part where the cartel boss told Alejandro "where do you think we learned it from" He was obviously referring to the Colombian cartels. He was trying to psychologically negotiate with Alejandro. He believed he was working for the Medellin cartel The Juarez cartel boss was telling Alejandro that he was not better than him, because he was now an assassin. And all the torture techniques the cartels do they learned it from the Colombian cartels during the 80's and 90's.
This has a lot of sense if we remember that the Colombians had the monopoly of drug trafficking back in the 20th century while Mexico was just a bridge, later the Mexicans betrayed the Colombians and created the Juarez, Sonora and Tijuana cartels...Making a lot of enemies in the process...It was left unclear if Alejandro was still working for the Colombians or that was only assumed by Diaz. In any case The CIA was the one using Alejandro to kill Diaz, although he had personal motives...But Diaz wasn't sure of this and assumed he was sent by the Colombian cartels bosses for whom Diaz himself worked decades ago, hence the "who do we learned it from" comment.
However and In summary, even entertaining the idea that the drug cartels are not the bad guys is totally moronic...of course everyone has a dark side and a good side...But just because even monsters like Ted Bundy or Charles Manson might have had a good side that doesn't make then less of a monster. The drug cartel boss said "It was not personal" meaning it was just business to kill and torture innocent people... He himself was after all still capable of show love...(towards his wife and children), while other people's wives and children was worth to kill and torture because it was just business... This doesn't make him less of a monster.
Granted, we all have a dark side, but the good overshadows the bad for the vast majority of us... For others is the opposite...That makes the difference of who is good and who is bad... And thinking that the drug cartels and the DEA officers are all in-distinctively good and bad is beyond stupid. Again I'm very sorry if I come out as belligerent, but I'm flabbergasted when people can have such wrong takes on things that (for the most part) are crystal clear.
She's not the villain. She's a representation of us, the spectators. We uncover this dark twisted world through her eyes. She is the law abiding, FBI hero that doesnt understand the rules of the game and her naivety is constantly faced with the harsh reality.
Well for many of the major fans of the film, who are ex-military or law enforcement, her portrayal is often mocked as annoying and warped to rally people behind the notion that war is bad. Yes, I agree war isn’t a fun or enjoyable concept, but it’s sadly a necessity in our world. People who work in these fields need to understand that there are no rules in war. There is no black and white. We aren’t expected to fight against the enemy with a book. Civilians don’t understand that without these people, we wouldn’t have the luxuries we have grown accustomed to. We wouldn’t be here sitting on our phones watching UA-cam all day or taking our dogs on walks through the park. These people protect our nation security and often times have to do shady things to do so. I’m not going to be so quick to judge a field that I don’t fully understand. My father always told me the stories about his time in the special forces but he never brushed upon the truth of what he had to do at certain moments. I understood that it was probably for the betterment of my sanity. I respect those who lose their morality in order to do the tough things others won’t do.
@@memesouls8653 I get your point. I completely agree that war is a necessary means to end evil shit such as cartels. She represents the civilian part of the world but i dont think she is a villain, shes just naive.
I will always respect american soldiers and I admire your country's patriotism, my father served with americans many times.
@@neymarmessironaldo5881 My father actually served with the Singapore special forces and worked along side Americans. Also yeah I agree her character isn’t the villain per say, but she’s definitely an obstacle for the protagonists and is often a liability.
Lol... since the joke of Vietnam, never understood why America stepped off soil for anything, not sure you ever helped, or didn't start wars for endless stupid reason...
Not against military, but you're all fighting the rich overlords wars, while thinking you saved the world...
Nothing about the middle east had a point, and this movie shows you that its clearly being started for money and control.
This movie doesn't put military in a good light, its flat out showing you how bad it is...
But yes let's play c.o.d and jer k ourselves off
But she obviously found out in the end though'/!!!
Kate isn’t the villain, she’s the audience.
ACB Films Brilliantly stated!!!
I find the suggestion she's the villain kind of warped tbh. She's the audience, but also the audience's ideals. She's not just FBI, she's HRT, they're tough as fuck. They're the best of the best at what they do. But they work within the legal parameters of what we the public expect of these elite officers. When people complain Kate isn't tough enough, she should harden up they don't get what the film is telling us. This isn't Hollywood. She isn't a Hollywood action hero. Nor should she be. So to suggest she's the villain BECAUSE she doesn't adhere to Hollywood action hero tropes is kind of disturbing imo.
If she is,then she's a terrible one. Because I don't feel connected or relatable to her at all.
@Alexander She leads the raid. You think HRT lets random FBI agents to lead the raid? lol
@@libextremist This is kind of the point of the disconnect when you compare this to other more Hollywood type films. In these kind of films Kate's role is to introduce us (the audience) to the world that's being revealed. Using the hero's journey as an example in films like SW or LotR the hero experiences something, grows and returns changed and transformed. In those films what they've transformed into is that more hero trope (they win and return victors). That's a satisfying hero arc and it's why it's used repeatedly. But that's not what Sicario is about and is why people don't feel satisfied with her character.
The line: "You are not a wolf, and this is a land of wolves now." people think is cool. It's not meant to be cool. And maybe that's one of Sicario's downfalls, like American History X, its framing is sometimes at odds with its message.
She's not a villain. She's just not a wolf. And she was in the land of wolves.
BULLSHIT SHES THE VILLAIN BECAUSE SHES A SNITCH!
A sheep in a land of wolves
indeed
She was not in the land of wolves, she was in the land of hyenas and she was not capable to understand it.
Alejandro has said it a the beginning of the movie
"Your American Eyes Will Not Understand"
She is the antagonist,yes,but not the villain.
She was scared to be a criminal so she got in panic.
Snitches get stitches
Shane Bertram: Kate is willing to have innocent people die just because she's unwilling to adopt unethical methods
_Batman has entered the chat_
Which is a problematic take when you have war criminals like Edward Gallagher, soldiers who believe that they can operate outside the law in order for a greater good. This video inherently promotes a worldview where soldiers are not to be held accountable for their actions because they, not their civilian oversight actually know what needs to be done on the ground. But in reality what did Brolins team accomplish in the long run, the assassination of one drug lord will lead to more violence and countless death of Innocents in the power vacuum. We are supposed to empathize with Kate's perspective that believes what is going on is wrong, because it is wrong! The whole operation was morally dubious and even moreso legally.
People like Graver and her FBI boss are the ones making the situation worse because in a path towards ridding the cartels and their violence, they commit the same injustices so that makes them hypocrites as well.
I absolutely agree with this
There is NO SUCH THING as "innocent people".
@@lucasgrey9794 then you've just crossed a realm that is untenable. Innocence does exist what kind of fucked up take is that?..
@Music Channel, I Guess it may seem like they have achieved nothing but thats only because the Cartel literally runs that country aka you are at war with the country of Mexico without declaring official war. If it was an official war and our military was sent in to exterminate the Cartel you bet your ass the drug problem would lessen but thats not what the heads of these agencies want at the end of the day. They make money off this trade just as much as the Cartel and I guarantee the Cartel only views these small squads stirring shit up as another hindrance rather than a threat.
Can't get behind this take at all.
The twist of this film isn't that she's the villain and not the hero. It's that Alejandro is the protagonist, and she (we) just thinks she's the protagonist, and is actually a powerless observer.
A representative of the law refusing to resort to trickery, murder, and mayhem to achieve their goals is not a villain, not by any stretch of the imagination.
What Kate runs into is the fact that her way of doing things---legally, above board, and beyond reproach---is not working. It's not that she's ignoring getting results in favor of "her" way of doing things. She is operating within what she has been taught is the letter of the law. Moreover, she's lied to (certainly and at least by omission) about what the task force is really doing. At the end of the day, all Kate is guilty of is refusing to sink to the level of the true villains---that is, picking lethal fights ("dramatically overreacting"), torturing prisoners, and turning loose a noncitizen assassin to murder the villain (and his entire family, including children)---to get some results. Results that in no way brings peace or saves lives on either side of the border, not really. It just ostensibly makes the situation slightly more manageable on the US side of the equation.
This is exactly why Alejandro's last words are to admonish Kate to go somewhere far from the border, some small town where the rule of law still exists---someplace her ideals can still be practiced and result in justice.
You should make a video. This is 100% accurate unlike whatever I just wasted time watching.
Thank you for putting into words my exact thought on the movie. This is the best take I've seen so far.
What the two previous commenters said!
"Villain" is a stretch. She is fundamentally a good person and that's what puts her at odds with the others. She's trying to force a line between good and evil on to a brutal reality that will not comply, and is unwilling to make the internal moral compromise that Matt and Alejandro have made. It's like "No Russian" from MW2, where the CO tells the undercover agent "It will cost you a piece of yourself". You can't blame her if that's a piece she does not want to part with. You can't blame Matt and Alejandro for making the choice they did. They movie intentionally ends leaving us feel uncomfortable, and ultimately nothing is resolved, because that eternal question "do the ends justify the means?" will itself never be definitively resolved.
Beautiful analysis. Kate definitely is NOT the villain. Most everybody other than Kate and her partner operate in the gray area. That's what makes this movie so interesting. Good and evil are too simple to define the folks fighting this war. Perspective is everything in this movie.
She's an accidental villain. She got herself into a career she wasn't cut out for. Like at the end when Alejandro tells her to go be a small town cop.
She's weak and nice and that makes her a danger. She has no control over her desired outcomes and that makes her without agency and therefore either redundant or ... more of a danger than useful or helpful.
God said the meek shall inherit the earth. The original meaning of the word meek reads thus ... he who knows how to handle or use his weapon but keeps it sheathed and ready. The strong will inherit, the determined, those who know what needs to get done and have that as a goal, not, doing it by the book.
@@TheCompleteGuitarist She's definitely not week she's HRT, which is like DEVGRU for police. And she is definitely meek, meaning she has discipline to do things by the book and not be brash. The problem is, in the movie she is always being thrown in situations where you must go outside the book, even a little and she seems to falter there.
I think Matt, much like Thanos, did not care. Alejandro had his own reasons for murdering cartel members.
Surprise Antagonist: yes. Moral counter-compass: perhaps. Villain: that's a stretch. But a very interesting take, well done.
i don't know if u can categorize her as the villain per se, but hear me out. when u read marx's communist books, every thing seems great, it should work perfectly, but when u take it to the practice in countries like cuba or venezuela, it doesnt work, because pragmatically is impossible. is the same as Kate, she wants to go by the book, but she is so far out of reality, that she doesnt know that pragmatically her ways are not going to work. is she naive? yes. is she the villain? I dont know, but we know for sure that her ways are not going to work, the same as the ways of the left won't work in the world.
My take is that she is needed hence we become mexico by allowing us to go too far i love this country and its checks and balances
Cope
She may not have been an intentional villian but a villain none the less. She was more interested in ending the joint taskforce than bringing down the cartel. She is Batman and the cartel is her Joker.
@Simon Cowell..... badass hero for the cartel
There's a lot of good observations here about her character, but I think that classifying her as a "villain" misses the point of the film and her character arc.
First off, the film exists in a moral gray area so terms like "heroes" and "villains" can't really be applied. The characters can only be classified as protagonist and antagonist, both of those terms refer to their function in the story and not necessarily their moral standing. On the surface the movie is about US drug enforcement agents vs. cartels, but really the cartels exist in the film's background. They're just there to inform the setting and provide a sense of danger. None of the cartel members (except Silvio, the police officer working with the cartel) are fleshed out characters. That's because at it's core the film is actually about the battle of morality between Kate and Matt/Alejandro (but I think we all knew that).
I disagree with the assertion that Alejandro can be the protagonist because he has no character arc. Any change his character went through happened off-screen before the start of the film. So functionally him and Matt are both foils (and thus antagonists) to Kate. If we were to apply a moral standing to them, they'd be anti-heroes at best. Kate is in fact the protagonist because she's the only character that has an arc within the story. Her story arc is complete in the final scene when she signs the documents and points her gun at Alejandro. When she signs the documents legitimizing the operation, she did so under duress because Alejandro had a gun to her head. Her lowering her gun at him later is her making a choice to accept of his methods and let go of her naïveté as well. That's the significance of that scene.
TL;DR: Kate's not a villain because the film exists in a morally bleak setting where heroes and villain don't really exist and she eventually accepts Alejandro's methods at the end anyway.
Thank you, I loved the video, because I like to study different opinions, but your angle makes the most sense to me, alongside with Chris Pham's.
What's absolutely amazing though -- how the "hero" with the story arch and all affects absolutely nothing, while those, who has no arch do all the job and actually accomplish things.
To me personally this looks like a great case in point of archs being largely misused in modern filmmaking, when they're seen as structure tools instead of purely organic companions of hero's journey.
It is sad to say, that not everyone is getting the point.
Thank you for adding sense to this video. The fact that they equate cool action hero as protagonist is driving me insane.
I enjoyed your perspective, but may I add mine. I thought she in the last scene, felt several emotions. one, she remembered he save her life. two, killing him would not be "going by the book" and she would be held accountable in her concept of the "rule of law".. and three she accepted his methods finally as neccessary. Alejandro turned and faced her believing her naivete(not being a wolf) would not allow her to pull the trigger. It is nice to see a movie that incites these many responses, instead of movies put together by computers, unrealistic characters jumping from skyscrapers, and 100 pound ladies, beating up five 250 pound men, for a change.
Thomas McIndoe, you're right, there's definitely a lot of ambiguity and mixed emotions in that scene. I think that ambiguity is one of the film's biggest strengths. It doesn't really take a side in the conflict between Kate and Alejandro and acknowledges both of their perspectives as valid on some level.
Kate suffers from Batman syndrome. Where her ideals take priority over doing what's most effective. It takes a monster to keep other monsters in line, and she is unwilling and/or unable to become that monster. Sometimes you just gotta step back and let people who are equipped to handle a job, do what they do. Don't interfere if you don't have a better idea that actually works.
Sure we all know Sicario is a Masterpiece.. and I like that.
After watching this, I can imagine that if the story focused on Alejandro and not Kate the entire time, this would feel more like a buddy cop revenge film where Kate's character would be that stickler type always trying to roadblock the maverick protagonist with rules and regulations.
If anything, it's the perspective Sicario takes that makes it a brilliant study on the morality of extrajudicial tactics and how the problem with the war on drugs is the us policies that perpetuate it further.
Otherwise when you really think about it, Sicario's plot isn't much different to an 80s-90s action flick.
If the movie wasn't from her perspective it would be plainly obvious she is a villain
@@byakugan2173 I hope we will never have to see how your perspective would change if one of those cops would murder your husband because he had a hunch that your husband was a "bad guy".
@Mister Ious lol..what a shitty way...so, a man'snot free to intake what he wills? no wonder pinoys just play games and take them way too serious
I was thinking the same thing, most of the tension comes from her learning what they're up to while they smirk and walk off. All this needed was some 'Narcos' type music and it'd be a pretty standard netflix original with excellent cinematography.
Great take
It's about her being a police woman in a military operation. Soldiers and police have different mindsets, and different missions. She was along for the ride to add a certain legitimacy, ended up being bewildered.
There was no American military in the movie.those are CIA operatives in the BDU's
They had delta force with them too.
Richard Lopez lol they literally say delta like 100 times. Even put subtittles on and when they speak it says "delta operator:"
Delta doesn't fight cartels.Those are CIA operatives in real life.'Delta" could refer to the team like "Alpha" and "Bravo" team
Richard Lopez delta does whatever they are tasked to do.. we even send regular infantry troops to south America to bust up cartels. Why would delta be exempt? Maybe you are unfamiliar with the dynamics and spectrum of Joint Operations.
Dude, there are neither heroes nor villains in that movie. But as the protagonist Kate is representing the average person, living after a broadly common morale, opening for us the window into a world with completely different set of ethics.
Indeed, it's funny how people are romanticizing Alejandro, lots seem to think they would be as 'badass' as him in this environment and that he's your unconventional good guy. But Alejandro isn't really accomplishing anything more than using tools at his disposable to get his revenge. It just so happens that doing so, it nudges the situation that seems favorable for the government by mutual interest. Never is it really revealed that his intentions are to end/tame the drug war or for the greater good. And more than the average person, Kate actually represent the viewer imo, we mainly discover the story and world of Sicario through her eyes.
This is why Sicario is such a great movie. Several different, debatable interpretations are possible.
The film is demonstrating how there can be no good solutions in the war on drugs (it the underlying policy that is the issue). The approach of every character is flawed because there is no moral solution, as Kate looking for one clearly shows.
It amazes me that people in the US still seem to believe that the war on drugs is winnable.
@@SOak145 Its winning for those in charge on both sides of the boarder. As long as the cartels and corrupt US politicians keep getting rich, nothing will change. This "war" is making people too much money to ever stop.
stu9000 When you say there’s no moral solution, not only do I understand that you don’t know what morality is, but you also resemble Kate as described in this very video.
BULLSHIT SHES THE VILLAIN BECAUSE SHES A SNITCH!
@@smokeralots7284
damned right
Chronicles of Riddick said it best: In normal times, evil would be fought by good. But in times like these, well, it should be fought by another kind of evil.
Jesus fucking Christ, citing a train wreck of a movie that Chronicles of Riddick is...
Good reference bro
Yeah. Tell your mother I want the meatloaf.
and you think, nobody thought of that before that so called movie? read some books mate
@@paolovallejo8022 Aw Pablo is maddo
Kate is not the villain, she is the spectator. Fausto is the villain and Alejandro is the hero/protagonist.
Alejandro isn't a hero he will even kill innocent bystanders in order to fulfill his revenge fantasy. If you see him as a hero that tells more about you than the film
I never saw Alejandro as a hero, in my opinion.
Just as a nearly broken man.
This movie is super morally ambiguous.
@@Kyle_00he killed 2 children in the end. Not very heroic
@@Kyle_00 No he's all of that and the Protagonist of this film. The script makes it clearer but the Director thought the opposite would have a better effect on the film and he was damn right.
Alejandro is not a hero, he is just a man on a revenge quest, a hero wouldn't murder the innocent wife and kids, since in classical terms a hero usually has a well defined and toned morals and ethics. He does not do this, did the kids murder his family, no, the father did, why should the kids burden their father sins, this is the difference between justice and revenge. He is still not the protagonist, because the story is still being told through kate, at most he is a duertagonist
Everyone keeps saying that Matt/Alejandro's methods were "effective", but that is not the impression I got.
If you recall, at the end of the film, it shows the little boy from the beginning at one of his soccer games. While they are playing, gunshots are heard not so far away. The players stop for a moment and the parents all look over in the direction of the gunshots, but then quickly pick up where they left off. This shows that the cartels/violence is still a problem (nothing has changed).
Killing the kingpin was cathartic (maybe, probably not though) for Alejandro, but it did virtually nothing to stop the drug war. It's like a hydra. When you kill one, others are waiting to pop up and take his place. Hence the new movie. Someone else filled the void and the gov/military is no closer to ending the drug war than they were in the first movie.
They were effective once you were realize their goals were never to end the drug war in the first place. There is no good or evil in this, only mutual interests, players and pawns, supply and demand, and shades of gray. Matt is a player. Alejandro realized to meet his new goals (revenge) he had to evolve from pawn to player.
Matt and the CIA recognize that this player has a mutual interest in taking down Alarcon, Matt to rebalance order in the CIAs favor, and Alejandro to seek revenge against his family's murderer (and also take out the competition for the Medellin cartel). Kate was a pawn, mostly there due to the rules of CIA missions on foreign soil, since US rightfully places laws around how the govt can claim plausible deniability, but those laws are mostly for show as they still need to get the job done (hence why she signed the paper but only at gunpoint).
Overall, the movie showed the gray area of fighting this war on drugs, and the total hopelessness of trying to win it. There is no end, no magic bullet, no final boss, even if you take out whole families at once to avoid vengeance seekers, there will be another one to take their place, yes like a hydra. Why? Because supply and demand. Many ppl in the US have a desire to purchase illicit drugs. If its illegal, ppl will still get it by nearby sources who make it available. Until 20% of the US population kicks the habit, there will always be a demand for it which black market entrepreneurs will fill. The US govt recognizes this and allows what needs to be done not really to win the war, but only to maintain balance in their favor. No heroes, no villains. Only shades of gray.
Keeping cartel fighting with each other makes them less focussed on the border, makes them nervous, more prone to make errors on which the justice department waits...
the cia was just putting down their own dog
The more open-minded viewer will note several issues in the movie Sicario.
(1) Langley runs amok in any theatre/sphere it chooses.
(2) Langley prefers to create issues that must be solved by military intervention.
(3) The military intervention (under uniform cover, or via "private security contractors," doesn't matter really) never solves the problem that Langley proclaims it's trying to solve.
(4) Langley is a Charlie Foxtrot.
The viewer should not see Langley as "effective," only different from the policy-wonk nonsense that the Kate Macer character believes in so strongly.
People need to stop implying that operations of such magnitude are going to be solved over night. You can't dismantle multi-million and billion dollar operations and organizations in a matter of days. Especially if the objective is clandestine rather than overt military operations...
The end portrays the reality of Mexico that idealists often forget. Mexico is still in chaos and there's more work to be done.
Kate isn't the villain, Kate is the audience.
Kate is the American public who would react in a similar way to learning about Matt's strategy. In the end she is ultimately broken.
meansartin aren't we the bad guys then for thinking drugs are okay, but not taking steps to legalize them? If it were legal, the FDA and legitimate South American businesses could get involved.
"Legalizing drugs" won't stop shit - eventually the drugs that are put on the open market place won't be enough for people, they'll want stronger highs as addiction rises. You can ALREADY GET drugs legally,, and those drugs will get you similar highs and because of this, addiction to prescription drugs especially among upper white women is high and many die from the result.
All that will happen is the drugs that are put on the black market will be a far better product than the ones businesses in the US are allowed to fund and put out
It's an incredibly black and white viewpoint that legalizing drugs will stop the drug war.
The White Rise you can get drugs, but you have to jump through hoops or fit very narrow criteria to get them. Crime went up during prohibition because making something illegal that shouldn't be means you have to go through career criminals to get it. A false increase in value also occurs because of the risk associated with getting it. We have legalized alcohol, and there is still a black market, but it's tiny and nonviolent. You are never going to get rid of the black market.
If someone commits a crime while high or to get drugs, they should be charged for the crime and not the drugs as there are many people who can use drugs without resorting to crime. Like alcohol, if you need more of a high, you can just consume more, but it should be your responsibility alone to regulate. A lot of people who don't deserve to be in prison would be released and/or avoid arrest in the first place. Crime would definitely go down.
Drugs are far more diverse and addicting than alcohol. Your comparison is bad....
And while there is STRONGER alcohol, it's not as addictive as experimental drugs. So, where do you put the line when we legalize drugs? Do you give a pharmacy far more leeway to put whatever they want out there? There is a good argument that they ALREADY have too much pull and put out some harmful shit to the public, as I mentioned, it's not like upper class white women are doing too well with drugs....
So you put a line on what you can do with drugs and put out there on the open market - as I said before, when it comes to hard drugs, people will want to up their high especially when their addiction manifests.
We can talk about recreational drugs, sure. We can talk about how people who do drugs shouldn't have harsh punishments - but pretending legalizing some drugs would destroy the cartel is absolutely naive. The Cartel would still be pushing the best product when it comes to hard drugs and people with addictions will not be satisfied with the lowly drugs that are 20 years out of date that a pharmacy is pushing.
Read this for other facts on this - it's always been a ridiculous notion.
foreignpolicy.com/2011/06/22/legalizing-drugs-wont-stop-mexicos-brutal-cartels/
Jacob Staten
Crime was up during prohibition, but it never went away. The Mafia didn't hang it up in 1933
Seems like you really missed the point of the whole movie. Its not her "personal" rules, its the code of ethics followed by someone acting in U.S. jurisdiction. She's FBI remember, but she gets thrown into a conflict beyond the U.S. where rules are rendered ineffective - mostly due to the corruption & influence of the cartels. Her point of view is what makes the film so much more effective, constant violence is not the norm for most of us. How do you apply the rule of law in a place where violence is so pervasive that children hardly pause a game of football while bullets go off in the distance?
Shes a karen to sum it all up
Glad to see someone else got it too
@@average_psyop_enjoyer Lol it was so satisfying when Matt (Josh Brolin) went all combatives on her ass when she came out the tunnel and decked him. Such an annoying character 🤣
Thank you hellhound. The war on drugs is as pointless as the prohibition and will eventually end the same way.
The market takes care of the demand just as it should supplying the cartels with endless amounts of cash.
Emily Blunts character sticks to her moral code, like a true western hero and is lost in this new world of endless escalation.
What does killing the drug lord accomplish? The power between the cartels will shift, but that's it.
She is given the opportunity to make a difference. She is given explicit permission to exercise those opportunities. She refuses to make a difference. She is close minded and refuses to see the reality as it is presented to her. Anyone else in her position would see the grey and reorient the way she looks at the war. But she doesn't, she blindly follows what she was told in a by gone era.
She is the representation of the US public. The public mentality doesn't change easily, she's there to show why there is so much held back from public. Whether it's right or wrong makes no difference when you have such a justification. If they knew, they would jeopardize everything that is being worked on.
I wouldn't say the villain, more like the threat to the team and the entire op. A more dangerous one than the cartel. Se had a very bad attitude from the get go, she insisted on bringing her colleague that nobody wanted, she then began throwing tantrums and question every move her more experienced and battle hardened superiors make, she then wandered off in the tunnels disobeying direct orders, and finally tried to jeopardies the op and wanted to rat them out, not to mention that she almost shot Alejandro in the back after he spared her life in her own apartment.
Her character's purpose is to show that behind her game there is a metagame to which she is oblivious. It is a reality check for her (and us).
She is just a puppet that has no idea wtf she's doing, that's what I saw. And she played the part well
She sticks to her code as it becomes more and more obvious that it doesn't serve justice.
She chooses to stick to the code that she was taught, therefore washing her hands of the fallout of her actions or inactions, instead of taking making her own determinations and taking responsibility
@@byakugan2173 she's afraid of living in a grey world because it would mean she can't see herself as righteous.
@@Sheeeit There's a quote that says "pawns are the soul of chess"...
Puppet doesn't have will and curiousity, which clearly she have.
I'll bet my entire life's worth that the Kate Macer character did not require any acting from Emily Blunt. Apart from adopting an American accent, that is. Otherwise, I'd wager Emily Blunt thinks exactly as Kate Macer does about the situation portrayed and examined in Sicario.
Sicario really captures how dark those battles can be and I LOVE it. A lot of your typical hollywood movies would have the same plot but instead, no civilians are harmed, it's just straight up good guys v bad guys. Sicario shows that sacrifices need to be made, lines must be crossed, and rules gotta be broken. Probably one of the best movies out there that can truly show you that and make you believe that it's for the greater good. If anyone has any movie suggestions that are similar, I'd love to watch them.
I have known plenty of people (mostly women) who are more concerned with pedantic following of procedure than effective outcome. I think it is a matter of mental laziness. And also a cover for FAILING the results. "At least I followed procedure or orders."
Kate isn’t a villain. “By the book” isn’t Kate trying to follow rules. It’s Kate trying to follow the *laws* , as Kate believes that the laws also dictate what is morally right and wrong. Kate stands for justice and pure justice, and this means justice that is not obtained illegally. The entire point of the film is the moral dilemma. Kate doesn’t believe that doing things illegally is worth the justice or order it may bring. Alejandro and Matt do.
There is no good guy or bad guy. The audience is made to understand everyone’s motive in this film. Kate’s struggle. Alejandro’s desire for revenge. Matt’s desire for the greater good. Silvio’s love for his family. And yes, even Alarcon’s “nothing personal” mindset, and his family. We as an audience struggle with supporting or condemning anyone in this film, because there is no hero and there is no villain.
quite the easy way out you took. If they had done it kate's way then a lot more people would have suffered and died = kate's a villain and a magical thinking one at that
@@SuperP37 so you would prefer cops be ok with breaking the law?
The point is the war on drugs is insane and that it's existence causes everyone to become a villain.
@@SuperP37
Hilarious, coming from someone who wants to legitimize precisely that suffering and death and say that it's perfectly ok if you can just construct some kind of mental excuse - i.e. "fighting" the cartel by officially approving the very ideology at its heart.
The magical thinking is on your part, I'm afraid.
@@lancemannly so please do tell us when these killers come to your neighborhood and affect your friends, family and neighbors what would you want to happen?
@@SuperP37 which killers? The drug dealers or the cops? Because both murdered innocent people in the movie
The Cartel absolutely love people like Kate because she is so easy to predict.
Talk about missing the point. The movie illustrates the impotence of conventional law enforcement when faced with the problems related to the drug trade. It poses an open question, asking if the ends justifies the means, and tries to show us how just how pervasive and nebulous the issue really is. Kate is meant to represent the somewhat naive point of view of the audience. She is the protagonist because it is her journey we are following. Whether you like her or not has nothing to do with it. Alejandro is not written to be a protagonist, nor is he a "good guy". At best, you can argue that he might be a necessary evil.
Andreas Karlsson he isn't written as a good guy archetype, but if he were a real person, many would regard him as a hero.
> many would regard him as a hero
The moment it came out that he murdered children he would not be known as a hero.
The White Rise it might not come out or be disregarded as hear say. Then again, some people might see it as a necessary evil of it scares the cartels and given what they did to his family. I'm not saying I agree. However unintentionally or not, the movie kind of treats him like a revenge story protagonist like Death Wish or the Punisher. It's not told from his point of view (sort of like how Lord of the Rings isn't in Aargon's view), but it follows a lot of the same story beats. The plan of getting the cartels that will cooperate to unionize and work with the government would save lives. There are plenty of statues and stories about supposed heroes with dirty little secrets nobody talks about. Hell, Che was just as evil as Hitler, but niave college kids still wear a shirt with his picture on it.
The film treats him as a character becoming the very thing that took his family. Kate's relationship with Alejandro was that of a father and a proxy daughter, at the end of the film, he had absolutely no problem putting a gun to her head to force her into doing something he wanted, and if she didn't, he would have murdered her. This is someone who viewed her as his daughter - this tells you how far he has fallen.
This is why the video is strange to me and it leaves out an incredible amount of context. The ambiguity about morality isn't with him, it's with the government - is it necessary to work with the enemy/evil to reach the end goal or should morals stay intact like with Kate's character?
You should watch the film again, he is in no way close to the Punisher - the Punisher is for using brute force against villains, but he is not someone who kills innocents to get to the bad guy - there is still a moral compass there, Alejandro's character is completely devoid of that.
The White Rise he is still arguably better than the cartels in that he is only doing this because of their actions and to stop them, not for profit, and would discontinue if he reached his goal. His targets do it systemically.
That's what separates him from the Punisher. He has a goal that actually might be obtainable, but would cost more morally to get there. He has the same kind of drive and origin though.
You just scratched that itch I couldn't.Thankyou my friend for deciphering it.
"He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster."
I think that's why Kate was so fixated on doing things "by the book".
nope. Kate represents a type of person employed by the government at every level who is stupefied by the failure of the status quo but will never give it up. For Kate, the status quo provides her a job, status, authority, and power. She is only interested in those things. She is willing to sacrifice as many peasants as necessary to retain those perks and will do nothing at all, ever, to jeopardize them. In this way she is no different than a gulag guard, concentration camp commander, or any of the thousands of American and Mexican Federales who would sacrifice the world for power, authority, and status. She is a reminder that at least half of the problem is our own fixation on the rewards we are seeking and the price we are willing to allow others to pay for them. In the end, she is no different than a CIA agent smuggling cocaine in to fund a war in Nicaragua, or Afghanistan. I worked with people like this for 30 years in the Army. They literally run everything.
"You become a monster so the monster will not break you" ; Bono
@@nco_gets_it Ok
@@nco_gets_it ROFL
You HAVE to be a monster to fight one.
A dog with fangs and a wolf's blood on its mouth looks the same as a wolf to a sheep.
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions".
Being naively "good" will get good people killed.
I don't think Kate was the villain. Her issue was she was an idealist in a non-idealist world.
Also she’s guilty of self riotousness
Idealists are not realists.
Mizanur Hussain >self riotousness
...
I can't
Frijolero18, Mizanur Hussain. Rightousness. If you're going to be here, at least learn the language.
Frijolero18 hahahaha sorry I was high at the time, I only comment on shit when I’m high and bored
"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster". This quote sums up the movie pretty well with its constant question of morals and values. Kate may be naive and "in a land of wolves " but she is definetly not a villain.
Villain implies intent...She does not want to be the villain...However she ends up being a liability....She is no wolf...in a land of wolves.
A villain can be someone who thinks they're doing the "right" thing but get a lot of people killed, that's what he's saying.
Just dangerously naive. Just because you're not actively doing wrong, doesn't mean that you can do no wrong. Plenty of bad shit in the world has been done with the best of intentions.
There's a saying .. "Those who play with the devils toys, come by degrees to wield his sword". In short, the question being asked is "Do the ends justify the means?". One response to this is that if you adopt sufficiently harsh tactics against the drug lords are you any better than them? You can fight against them ineffectually according to the rules and fail, or you can oppose them using any tactics you wish and fail because you are now no better than them.
@@blaizerhodes I have always found that argument to be stupid af. "Now you're no better than your enemy"; you're already no better than your enemy for fighting them in the first place. There is no sense in being stupid & ignoring useful but dIsHonOrAbLe tactics that might help you win, (talking to you, Ned Stark).
Exactly! Kate was the absolute worst. I was thinking, do they want us to hate her? Not only her dialogue but her vibe. She just gave me the creeps the whole time.
This is, indeed, an interesting perspective. Although, I think it’s a more narrowly tailored point of view which misses the overall themes of the movie.
She’s not the villain. She’s also not the hero. There aren’t heros in this movie. Only a common enemy, the cartel, our villain. The movie’s central theme seems to ask, and leave open, the question of weather or not the ends justify the means. These questions are posed when Alejandro kills the cop and, later, the cartel leader’s wife and children.
In doing these things, have they become the very thing they were sent to destroy?
While maintaining the status quo is the most likely alternative, becoming your enemy doesn’t eradicate the problem, it simply shifts the players.
Nice
You don't destroy your foes by being morally superior.
You destroy your enemies, scorch their legacy, and dismantle their entire organization piece by piece, and send a message that any other who does likewise will face the same fate.
Its what we did with the Nazis, so why is it now a fucking problem?
The groups smuggling drugs, firearms and human slaves into other countries are objectively evil and those that fight against them are objectively good. This movie isnt about such childish notions as "do the ends justify the means?", the movie is asking if you as the audience have the courage and moral fortitude to do what is necessary to eradicate evil. You cannot fight hardend, organised cartels with good intentions and court orders from legal entities they dont recognise.
@@oceanicastronaut2830 - I never implied that the cartels were acting in a way other than evil. Indeed, their trade is evil, and the actions they take to continue their trade are likewise evil. What to do about it is the question.
How do good people prevent the continuation of that evil? Is it doing evil to eradicate evil?
If that’s your position, then should some other body enact evil to likewise eradicate the “hero’s”?
Consider what the end goal of the “heros” was in this movie. It wasn’t to stop the import of illegal drugs into the U.S. it was to centralize the drug trade into the hands of another cartel in Columbia so they could more easily regulate the volume of illegal drug imports.
Then what can be done? Well, American politicians can and should confront their counterparts in Mexico, Columbia etc. threaten them with sanctions, tariffs and other economic reprisals if they don’t actively work to thwart the efforts of the cartels in their own countries. These politicians could even offer assistance; weapons, training and military assets such as those depicted in the movie. If imposing these sanctions etc. is ineffective, and the governments of Mexico and Columbia decline to help eliminate the problem, the U.S. still has a number of additional approaches it can enact, such as militarizing the southern border and only engaging where there’s threat of passage into the U.S. or when engaged.
Another option to consider is legalizing these drugs and producing them domestically.
Are you starting to see my point?
@@oceanicastronaut2830 you have no clue as to who the actual evil people are. The cartels and their minions are mere pawns of the actual masters in the war on drugs.
"it's clear she puts the importance of her own disconnected ideals above... most importantly, innocent lives" bro earlier you said alejandro is the protagonist, the guy who murders two kids and their mom
the antagonist of the film isn't even subtext. what do you think the "who do you think we learned it from?" line is about? the CIA spooks like Matt who hire Alejandro and take advantage of Kate's naivete to allow them to perform legal clandestine domestic operations are the ones who started and continue to escalate the violence.
He is the protagonist myguy shit had to get done he let them kids live know they want to b in charge he did the absolute right thing but your ideology want let you see why
@@xavianbraams4614 i mean i guess my ideology of "children should not be murdered" may be getting in the way of seeing Alejandro as the the good guy here yeah
@@Nick-jy4zf I feel like as the protagonist of the movie he absolutely made the right decision to kill them kids and the wife shit you ask me the made to but in a serious not In that life every stone must b flipped and Checked
Obviously the wife knew what was going down, also the two buys would have joined the family business, prevention is better the cure.
Naiveté and/or incompetence is not villainy. It may well be that Kate's actions, or inaction, may not be the most effective course to take, but that is wholly different from the willful, proactive destruction of innocent lives.
point is shes the antagonist
What about a bumbling baffoon that triggers a catastrophic meltdown?
Is that person a villain? Are we to absolve everyone just because they are naive?
She's a Pontius Pilate. Washing her hands of the the injustice that's taking place
If naivete and/or incompetence result in the death of innocents maybe it is villainy.
@Terror shes not stopping good things. If you look closely you see that matts plan was totally ineffective because as you might remember the last scene shows the police officers son playing football and there are again shootings in the backround. Matts methods only seem to be effective because they are loud and easy and look cool but fail to appy to our very complicated reality.
Holy cow, that's a great perspective! I've seen this movie so many times and never realized that conclusion. Thanks for your take.
She’s not the villain, she’s supposed to represent us, the viewer. We have a vague idea of right and wrong that we automatically project beyond ourselves despite having little real knowledge of the subject at hand. Because of ego, ours and hers, we are resistant to change even when our point of view is repeatedly shown to be wrong or misguided. The movie is a letter to the audience that let’s us know that we have no idea what the fuck we are talking about and that THIS is the world as it truly is. Instead of breaking the fourth wall and turning the film into a brutalist version of 24 Hour Party People they give us Blunt’s character to judge ruthlessly instead of having to admit we’re the ones that are misinformed on the subject at hand
Interesting. I like your point of view.
She is literally a ride-along character…
minus the first four words... you nailed the meta-analysis.
I like your perspective, I would also like to add my opinion.. this movie helps illustrate how subjective right and wrong is, and how if you simplify any complex issue like "the drug war" or "the war on terror" into a battle between good and evil, then maybe you should take a good hard look in the mirror and realize maybe you are the evil one. Or maybe it's all evil and everything is icky and you are being used.. see also american sniper.
If you took time out of your day to read the opinion of some random stranger on the internet (me) thank you for your time
But aren't we the villians?
This is why writers use the term 'antagonist' instead of "villains/bad-guys". A character can be opposed to the objectives or missions of a piece's protagonists without needing to fill the "villain" archetype.
Perfect comment! It's not her story, so regardless of where people stand on the morality of the methods employed by the actual protagonist, as well as supporting parties, her character poses the greatest threat to the operation and the goal of the protagonist.
Also, there is a bit of this in Better Call Saul. Saul is always trying to do good, just not in a good way. Conversely his brother is always "by the book" but somehow is an asshole. His brother is doing evil under the guise of morality.
Doing evil under the guise of morality is the preferred modus operandi of assholed and scumbags throughout history.
Throw in straw dogs , w/ Hoffman...!
It’s really not fair to say that chuck is “evil”. Just like it’s kind of naive to say that Emily Blunt is a “villain” in Sicario. She is supposed to be the moral compass of the film, even if her methods are not working.
@@jandcstopmotion7774 Chuck is absolutely evil though. Emily Blunt's character in Sicario is much closer to a genuine idealist. Chuck is a thin-skinned hypocrite with no conviction, his "ideals" are concrete only to the extent that he can define goalposts to continually move so that from his perspective Jimmy is always bad, stupid, and unworthy of being a lawyer and Chuck is always good, correct, and worthy of it. He's a spineless, dogshit hypocrite with absolutely not a shred of meaningful conviction and he gets the ending he deserves.
Not that Jimmy is necessarily a "good guy" but Chuck is scum, the fact that his ideals are wholly a facade becomes immediately obvious every single time Jimmy tries to better himself. If Chuck had even the thinnest shred of integrity he'd support his brother, but he cares more about being above Jimmy than literally anything else. I understand that the presentation of Chuck's end is intended to be sympathetic, but I had zero sympathy for him.
his brother is absolutely not evil, are you serious? the only reason he comes off as an asshole is because he knows exactly what kind of person his brother is. Did you forget that literally every single accusation he made was true?
She not the villain. Institutions are the villain, and the movie suggests over and over that a doctrinaire approach to these emergent societal structures like cartels and alphabet security services like the CIA, DEA, DOJ etc..Is an approach outmoded in the current state of play. A key aspect of Alejandro’s character isn’t that he WASN’T the grieving attorney known to the Sonora cartel, and he wasn’t the vengeful father Matt pitched him as. Neither label is apt, except as propaganda. What Alejandro real is is a former fixer for an older cartel that once operated in concert with American security interests. He represents a power that wasn’t under the constant threat of US intervention, and thus provided a more peaceful status quo in the region. The reason for that - never stated but directly implied - that the Medellin organization Alejandro represents was cutting Intel services in on it’s drug biz. So not only is Alejandro a harbinger of a once thriving peace trying to re-obtain, but also a revenue stream and Intel hub for US interests. That’s why Matt turned him loose: not for justice or revenge, but to make a profitable American protectorate from a country-spanning drug business. The right tool for this one very specific job could only be Alejandro, with his knowledge both in the application of violence and in the understanding of the Cartel. So I think we are supposed to look beyond the agencies and policies that Kate represents, and to the pragmatic success of Matt’s designs transcending whatever evil his handlers at CIA may be up to.
Well...I think from Kate's perspective, fighting evil with evil, makes you evil. She doesn't want to be evil.
So her (and people like her) milquetoast hamstringing will go nowhere leaving both sides locked and more innocents suffering.
@@heathmcrigsby Agreed. Committing acts of evil upon evil people is justice. It's the only thing evil people understand.
Fighting evil with good never works. Unfortunately
Yeah but she saod herself nothing else would work so she is just perpetuating the problem. Having people waste time and resources getting nowhere.
Eye for an eye
Good video, and I enjoyed your perspective on it.
This movie should be called liability and just have a pic of blunts face.
A war that’s been lost . They do what they do the way they do because it makes no difference what they do or the way they do it
Kate's arc fits into aspects Victoria Lynn Schmidt's "Heroine's Journey" narrative arc. Very common in heroine-centered narratives. Instead of the "Hero's Journey" with a hero who goes on an adventure and overcomes challenges, the heroine begins her journey by realizing that the world is not as it seems, that what she has been told about reality is false. I think part of what you describe about the emotional investment in characters comes from the intentional portrayal of Del Toro's and Brolin's characters as charismatic and capable; just like we expect them to be from their appearance (masculine, handsome, relaxed, self assured). The heroine often encounters these powerful male figures who make her question her own beliefs and even undermine her grip on reality. Following that archetype, Sicario only gets about halfway through the narrative, or at least skips through a few of the redemptive stages. Kate returns to her starting place, but is also in the "all is lost" stage of the story arc when the movie ends. I think that Denis Villeneuve, for all his masculinity, is very tuned into feminine power in story telling; like in Incindies, and even parts of Dune, the way he portrays Jessica.
I think videos like this are very important because they remind me that so many people who wish to talk about movies, music, literature, art, etc. have absolutely zero clue how to process the things they see or feel in any kind of valuable way and that the vast majority of poeple have aboslutely nothing of merit to say.
Glad to know Im not the only one who felt like that about Kate. She was too close minded and naive.
i don't know man, feels like your interpretation is way off.
Sicario has always felt to me to be about the naivety of people in gated societies towards the cruel realities of real life and of societies beyond their own.
Kate sees the criminals as victims and law enforcement as criminals. Her entire goal throughout the movie was getting evidence to destroy people and their lives work.
Kate: "I'm going to tell everyone what you did".
Why is she telling if she was already told this was all done by the book and was approved.
@@Jenny_Lee_ She is just an idiot who wants to bring wooden knives to a gun fight.
i don't know if u can categorize her as the villain per se, but hear me out. when u read marx's communist books, every thing seems great, it should work perfectly, but when u take it to the practice in countries like cuba or venezuela, it doesnt work, because pragmatically is impossible. is the same as Kate, she wants to go by the book, but she is so far out of reality, that she doesnt know that pragmatically her ways are not going to work. is she naive? yes. is she the villain? I dont know, but we know for sure that her ways are not going to work, the same as the ways of the left won't work in the world.
This a classic and quite excellent technique displayed here that is about projecting in the story the average viewer and his/her mundane beliefs as a side character , where his beliefs are confronted ( and dismantled ) by the other "main" characters to involve the viewers more into the story . Here it is done masterfully , and that is one of the multiple aspects that made Sicario a gem .
if Kate was supposed to be the audience how come everyone came out pissed off at her sabotaging almost every chance she had? If that was the aim then only a civilian could be a suitable role. We expect more from the people who have to have a certain psych profile to even set foot in the FBI
You couldn't be more wrong. If we don't subscribe to the dictates of our OWN moral compass, to whose notion of morality should we subscribe? That of a ruthless bureaucracy? A vengeful colleague? A utilitarian state?
One can understand Alejandro and sympathize with his boundless grief, his justifiable grievance, and his ineluctable rage, but to describe Kate as a villain is an endorsement of vigilantism. I love animals, wolves included. The thing about wolves, though, is that they have the luxury of being free from ethical constraint.
Alarcón's young boys almost certainly did not yet know what a monster their father was or how he made his living, no more than Alejandro's daughter did. They were executed AS A PUNISHMENT TO THEIR PARENTS. Is that justice, then, or revenge? Sympathetic as he is, Alejandro had become little better than the thing he hated. In his loss and grief and vengeance, he had held a gun under battered Kate's chin, ready to execute her, too, if she wouldn't sign his license to kill. If what he did was morally defensible, why should he need her to sign off on it, and be willing to kill her if she would not? This is why in our courts we allow victims to have their say, but we dont give them the power of judge and jury. We are a nation of laws, not wolves.
Sicario is a great movie. We love Alejandro and are deeply sympathetic to his rage, his unbearable grief, and his unquenchable need for revenge. He is Achilles, dragging Hector's corpse behind his chariot before the walls of Troy. But that, by no means, makes Kate a villain. She is our appalled conscience.
"The ends justify the means" is why we have laws. And where your logic fails.
Paul Cannon Laws don’t define reality
@@Prometheus7272 and reality based on the most evil of evils doesn't define the law
I agree , we define reality and we the people have both the power and the responsibility of the law. Our country, our constitution is hard work and we as a populace have been lazy. Look at who we have let run for President the last few elections. These are the best America has to offer us? No , but we aren't using our vote, our voice to demand better. If the laws don't work, change them. Don't disregard them and please don't praise those who do.
@@NickHunter We define the law, if a law passes and nobody follows that law then that law is useless. We create laws to better control our reality if a law passes that nobody follows then its a failed law. So if a law is really distant from the reality then it will most probably not be followed and fail.
But we also have plea deals, undercover cops and criminal informants, so even THEY need to bend the rules a little.
I appreciate your editing, script-writing, and thoughtful analysis. However, I think you are too quick to pin Alejandro and Matt as the “heroes.” Painting anyone as a hero regarding this story ignores the poignant final scene-the gunshots ripping through the air during the soccer match.
The point is that nothing has changed. Doing things morally or brutally doesn’t matter because the war on drugs is fruitless. Frankly, this video and some of the comments are disturbing because they are turning this complicated situation into a U.S. savior complex where the ends justify the means.
The US is acting in the interest of the US.
She is willing to let evil thrive instead of getting her hands dirty.
At some point everyone has to take a stand.
Sometimes inaction is the same as complicity
The Us is acting in their own interest.
She chooses to let evil happen as not to get her hands dirty.
At some point you have to take a stand and not doing so makes you complicit
Logan, you nailed it - like the great film 'Traffic' there is no 'winning' the war on drugs - Matt, through Alejandro, is merely replacing one group of drug dealers with another - because the Medellin cartel is more 'stable' than Arcon's - but as seen when the Delta operator takes Kate to the roof to watch the battles in Juarez (as well as the final automatic gunfire during the soccer game), it's not like the change will be without lots of death. You cut off the head of a snake and five more rise up vying for control.
Kate I believe is supposed to represent us, the American public - involved in the fight, but fairly clueless about how the game is played - she's dragged along for the necessities of Matt's project (having a fed along on 'joint operations'). Kate isn't the villain, and Alejandro isn't the hero - his 'but for me it is (personal)' and killing the innocent Aracon kids and wife demonstrates this vividly - he's out for (understandable) revenge. There are no heroes in this story, I think that's the point - Kate's journey is our journey, discovering the terrible moral quandaries of the war on drugs, and the fact that what is done in our name, by individuals at US agencies is completely immoral and of questionable value (the Medellin cartel was not particularly well-known for being nonviolent).
@@byakugan2173 "The US is acting in the interest of the US." - The US is acting against its own interest. Not only does the War on Drugs damage American society and bring about more violence, the whole drug trade enterprise was a CIA op to finance anti-communist factions during the Cold War.
"She is willing to let evil thrive instead of getting her hands dirty." - Getting hands dirty means giving up the ideals that made you whole in the first place. Personally, I don't think anyone has moral quandries about torturing or massacring cartel members. But once we condone the system that does it, we're paving the way for our own doom because those tactics will one day be used against us. Remember how the PATRIOT Act was supposed to be used against terrorists? Now Congress wants the FBI to have access to everyone's internet records.
Once you get dirty, you can't wash it off.
@@ChucksSEADnDEAD So, let the cartels alone...They are good boys... Right?
Jeez man, you missed the whole point of the movie.
thank you
@sneef Ha another one
@sneef Yea with such a smart and cool statement like that I'm very sure you have understood the point of the movie.
@sneef Smart and idiotic, well done brother. You should be a movie critic. A certified ham roll of a movie critic.
@sneef This movie is one heck of a movie. Just stating that there really isnt a hero or villian in this movie. Point of Emily blunt's character is to show the difference between good and bad, moral compass of getting a job done. Just my opinion. That's what so good about this movie. One can have so many views. Sure some ppl think benicio is a villian, SJWs that is.
Kate and her friend are the only humans, so to speak, in the film. As some have already commented, she's the audience, every question she has, and every action she makes are what's supposed to come from a normal person. And in this story, she's the anomaly, who's hell bent on doing things by the book, which helped the heroes to use her and pin everything on her in the end.
She is not a hero or villain, she is conscience.
Yes. She is basically the same character that Ben Kingsley played in Schindlers List. She represents the audience.
I agree she is not the villain or hero but she is also not conscience.
Peter Love no, she’s an idiot
She is a liberal
She was definitely self-righteous.
She's not a villain or an antagonist, she's a victim. She's a horror movie protagonist, who has their worldview shattered.
She was naive …… Woman ☕️
You're too dumb to feel stupid
yea their world view. Their lil perfect world 💀
Yeah a victim maybe but also an idiot and does more harm than good
@@damjanmladic9327would you be any better in that situation LMAO
One shot, one kill. Great analysis of her character, motivation and actions. Noble intentions can have bad outcomes and bad intentions can have noble outcomes. The way of the world.
"the road to hell is paved in good intentions"?
Tell that to the cartel leader's kids. "Noble outcomes" my ass.
What does this article have to do with the problem. Are you saying that killing those kids led directly to saving someone else's life? I don't think so. It was just revenge. He could have let the kids go like let the maid go. Your trolley argument only exists if that the lives of the five and the life of the one are directly and simultaneously linked and you are forced into making a choice. Almost as if you have a gun pointed at your head by a mad man. Were those the conditions under which alejandro was operating under? Or did he sneak into the house of his enemy and kill his children and wife in front of him? To make him suffer. For revenge. There were no lives at stake at that dinner table.
Not exactly. If one fights against evil, kill the evil and at the end of the war becomes the evil, theres no outcoming victory!
The real defeat is not death. The real defeat is to become the evil. For example: Martin Luther King was killed but he won!
Alejandro wants revenge. Matt just wants victory at any cost. Kate is completely right when she fights to keep her values.
The movie depicts a complex situation the causes every kinds of conflicts. Personal conflicts and legal conflicts.
I think every characters in the movie are in some kind of conflict trying to find a path.
Well you know what I mean. The cartel boss was dead and he deserved his fate.
Don´t konw if you did it on purpose (probably) but the cut from 11sec to 12sec is beautiful. Just wanted to point that out. Thank you for thinking of the editor nerds out here. I appreciate it very much.
“The Real Hero” my god. I instantly imagined Alejandro shoot the family the. Saying “Go ahead and finish your meal”.
His daughter, in a vat of acid.
He didn't need to be merciful enough to headshot Alarcon's family. Yet he did.
What about the mutilated bodies hanging in the streets
Kate is us. The audience. She was in the dark of the whole situation throughout most of the movie. She knows as much as we do and that’s why this movie felt so immersive to me. It felt like she was a projection of the audience. But maybe it’s just me. lol.
Message of Sicario: "This shit's chess, it ain't checkers."
"You are asking me how a watch works. Just pay attention to what the time is."
Did you even watch the whole movie? How can you watch the same movie twice and skip the ending both times? The operation doesn't solve anything, we can see that clearly in the scene with the kids playing soccer at the end.
You're basically saying that she's the antagonist because she is keeping the narrative from reaching it's conclusion, but at the end she fails, she signs the papers, the operation went exactly as intended and nothing changed. The boy, now an orphan because of your so called true protagonist, still has to live in a war zone.
By no means the story is making an endorsement of the operation, and I think the reason you saw it that way was because of your own personal bias with regards to the topics present in this film.
Loved watching your analysis. Made me think!! I think it really depends on your moral perspective. But, she’s clearly not a villain imho. She’s more of a moral center in the middle of chaos, between to opposing forces of chaos. A real person with every-day life type morality. She thinks nothing like the cartels, Brolan and Alejandro do. They fight the cartel on their terms. She refuses to engage at that level. The real point of the film I think, and I think they got you with it, is that we eventually find ourselves agreeing with the actions of Alejandro and find Kate’s objections annoying. But, she stands in the face of chaos. The alternative is a world with no code or moral center. Not only is she not the villain, she is for the most part a victim of both sides agreeing to forgo rules and morality... stuck in the middle against all odds... she’s the heroine. It’s not because we might find reasons to agree with Alejandro’s actions and value the act of vengeance and she contradicts that that it makes her a villain. Shared ideals and values are what hold communities together. Letting go of these values can lead to chaos, at least that is what she believes.
No, she's HER OWN moral center, with her "morality" being amoral solipsism. Actual morality considers all sides of an issue. Kate Macer considers only HER SIDE. The maker of the video above did a fine job on this short video. There's much more to say about Sicario, Kate Macer, Matt Graver and Alejandro Gillick as the 3 primary characters animating this good movie.
The ‘book’ is the Law. What they did in Sicario is illegal it doesn’t matter if it was ‘approved’ by their superiors if your superior tells you to do something illegal it is your responsibility to 1st not do that illegal thing and 2nd report your superior. As an FBI agent she should have made a report with the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility and with the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General. They broke numerous long standing US treaties with Mexico as well as committing acts of war against a US ally. Yes Sicario is about How The war on drugs is not working. It is also about how escalating that conflict causes you to use lose your humanity.
Humanity. Now that is funny. Villains rule the world. Billionaires didn't become billionaires by being honest or ethical. Look at apple, Microsoft, amazon profiting off slave labor. The USA didn't become a super power by playing by the "rules" nor did Russia, China, Saudia Arabia, Germnay, France, etc. Living a life of ethics and morals will only get you eaten alive.
A villain is a strong word and I think that's why many dislike this video. She's not a villain anymore than an average person telling their neighbor to keep the noise down for the whole neighborhood.
She has a moral compass and convictions that say you can't "drive out the darkness with more darkness", she doesn't say that but that's what her character is. To her, the way we achieve justice and bring justice is through the socially chosen institutions of the courts of law, and she only has to bring the criminals in--however, the world is complex and much of the system is compromised because they make deals with minor criminals, cut corners, and compromise their values in order to get something done about the violence, in order to get ANYTHING done.
Kate doesn't understand that and she never will; that's why Alejandro tells her she's not a wolf at the end of the film, and this is a land of wolves. That's powerful, because we see her for who she truly is at the end, as she ends up compromising her values--but in that moment, she puts her nugget of help toward the cause, even if it means she'll never be able to tell the truth of how dirty it is to bring about hardcore change in the face of criminal violence.
She understands at the end that those people on the force she opposed are doing more for curbing violence than she ever could by being straight-laced, and it's why she leaves. It doesn't make her a villain though, it makes her naive throughout most of the film and that distinction is very important.
Damn, you were doin' so good till that last paragraph. The USG w/ it's minions are the only reason there IS violence, or that cartels even exist. Violence comes w/ ultra high risk/ high profit illicit trade, illicit trade comes from prohibition & harsh punishment escalating the stakes & level of violence, w/ militarization forcing militarization response. What you're sayin is propaganda for a corrupt system that robs the tax payer, the people, treats it's own citizens like a foreign enemy, a system that says we can't bend or break the law & let a grown adult posses a $5 bag of drugs, but we can violate every felony, international law, go & murder ppl w/ impunity; start wars between cartels, kill innocent ppl oops.
Just think about if you really wanna promote that.
Peace Bro
I find your assessment of ends justifying the means completely backwards. Ends justifying the means implies that evil actions are justified so long as the end result is positive. Her character is fighting against committing those evil actions. This movie, great as it is, is a film that dangerously implies that ends justifying the means is acceptable and appropriate.
I think it more show the audience that though the acts are evil, the audience enjoys them just as the audience is full of people who do drugs sometimes and still demand we fight the cartels. We love sadistic violent movies.
No, Kate represents the rule of law. She is an FBI officer who is attempting to do her legal duty and is thwarted by others with generally aligned goals, but who believe that the ends justify the means. She is akin to the soldier who knows that it is illegal to obey an illegal order.
Exactly to most in sacario law is only followed when it convenient then thrown away when it’s not hypocritical to an extreme. Kate not only represents law but a Batman level conviction to play by that book
Alejandro and the US agents plus politicians play fast and loose with the law
I really liked Sicario. Her acting however wasn't on the same level as Benicio & Brolins.. I was happy she wasn't in Sicario: Day of the Soldado. Dude from the movie "Get Out" didn't help the film either, so I'm glad he got tossed as well. Soldado really lets Del Toro & Brolin's skills as accomplished actors shine. Heavyweight co stars like Katherine Kenner & Matthew Modine enhance the story & give good performances. Lets finish this amazing story off with a third film, eh? Wrap this dope series up with a trilogy.🌵🌞
Uhhhhh no. Blunts acting in Sicario far outshone both Del Toro and Brolin's in this movie. She simply had more conflicting and emotional scenes....Idk how you can rate them above her.
Sicario 2 sas good, but performances were still better in S1 imo.
The guy from Get Out is a pretty alright young rising star atm, and he certainly didn't hamper the movie.
Blunt sucked in this movie.....Worst casting decision in the history of motion pictures.
The seconds movie is a dumpster fire, I’d like some of what you guys are smoking.
@@grahamhill676 Low IQ take.
@@DARKRESCURED Says the one with a feminist profile pic 😂
Interesting analysis. Perhaps Kate was a "slave" to her ideals ( in her case on what a good law enforcement officer is), regardless of the situation, while Matt was more of a realist , letting the situation dictate his course of action. I get this feeling we all kind of start out thinking like Kate, but end up thinking like Matt.
Kate’s own stubbornness to do things by the book almost got her strangled to death by an informant , and who came to her rescue.. Alejandro, the real protagonist.
All it takes for evil to triumph is for good to do nothing. This is Kate !!
Tears of The Sun
This is an interesting (and, to me, unexpected) perspective - since I just felt sorry for her and everybody else caught up in the moral abomination that is the oh-so American "war on drugs" tacked on to yet another doomed-to-fail experiment with Prohibition.
But it strikes me as a quite legitimate view that can just as easily be supported by Villeneuve's typically ambiguous (i.e. morally ambiguous) storyline as mine or anybody else's. (I don't think I've yet come across a Villeneuve film that lacks this feature, which is why I guess his films seem to get a lot of attention among the UA-cam cinema crowd.)
In short, Sicario is the sort of movie that seems positively designed to provoke long discussions aand sharp disagreements between its viewers (which is what a lot of us love in a movie, after all).
In the end, what we individually take away as lessons from Sicario tells us more about how each of us views the world than any truly "objective" or "paint-by-numbers" reading of what it "meant" to say...
In substance you're right about everything you say about her character, but calling her "the villain" demonstrate a certain bias and somehow an misunderstanding of cinema and storytelling in general. You seem to be one of those people who wrongly think that the protagonist (or even the "hero") have to be the character you like or empathize with.
This is an absolutely brilliant movie and your character analysis has provoked an even deeper understanding of the players involved. Thank you for your invaluable insight.
That's a little bit of a reach my friend, I'd say she had more of a novice attitude throughout the movie more than anything.
In the end the true villain at the heart of the movie was the DEA smuggling American calibre weaponry to the Cartels to keep the balance of rampant inferiority south of the border.
Sicario is a masterpiece. It's comical how much better it is than the BS sequel they made.
It’s better but not by a high degree
Love movies with morally ambiguous characters. Denis Villeneuve seems to be a master at it, both Sicario and Prisoners absolute masterpieces in that regard
I am from El Paso. I loved that bit when they showed tracer fire going back-and-forth across Cuidad Juarez at night. Like it was Beirut in the 1980s or something lol
I can kind of see what you’re trying to get at here, but I don’t think I could disagree more. Kate’s moral code IS written by the FBI, or more accurately, the laws of the constitution and international jurisdiction. Death squads aren’t exactly legal after all, in case you didn’t know. Kate is a straight arrow and wants justice done the right way, and its safe to assume that most people (the audience) are with her in that. She’s the one who takes us through the story. The problem she encounters is that while she’s fighting with straight arrows, the enemy is fighting with cannons. Its just not working, which is why the government looks to more extreme, and secretive ways of dealing with a problem that requires extreme and secretive methods. What I love most about this movie is the moral ambiguity. Kate isn’t wrong in what she says and does, but her way just doesn’t work against this kind of problem. Matt and Alejandro aren’t wrong by trying to use more effective ways of handling the cartel, but they’re doing so at with morally questionable methods. My favorite theme of the movie is “how far is too far to fight evil?” and I think your interpretation kind of ruins a lot of that question by assigning a hero and a villain to the characters.
Very interesting point! I loved this movie and always found myself asking "why do I dislike her so much?" 😂🤣
I didn't dislike her per se but it seemed like her character was too naive. People were hanging from electric poles fully skinned and she is worried about moral issues and procedures????
@@aminulparvez7565 it's not a fucking deathwish movie. Imagine if a foreign country mounted an illegal incursion into the US and killed American citizens (criminal or not) the world would go berserk
@@NickHunter depends on what the criminal did. If they killed a lot of people or caused a lot to die, great. If they did anything else, idk. I would be upset its happening
DJCR33P yea but these are just Mexicans tho
DJCR33P Americans are worth more
I'm glad there are folks that genuinely dive into films, good ones at that! Sicario, even it's sequal, which became a very different film, nearly a different genre, is a beast of a movie. But, labeling Kate as a 'villain' is kinda not what's going on in the film. Kate's more of our gateway into viewing this world and if anything just symbolizes a dissenting voice on meeting violence with violence. Think you dove too much into that one. Not suggesting you didn't think it through or that youre stupid, alright? But, yeah, Kate's motives have no parallel with Fausto. Blunt's character, much like one of the key promotional posters they used for the film, is simply the witness, the looking glass that gives allowance to the script to set up the narrative for the audience to understand two points of view regarding 'the war on drugs' and the nature of what it means to 'speak softly but to carry a big stick.' Released later, but I gotta quote Rust in True Detective, "The world needs bad men. We keep the other bad men from the door." Kate simply disagrees with that. Her training, her mindset, is different, and that's also why the team they put her on needs her, to save public face for what they perceive to be the only way in dealing with what's going on. If anything, Kate's neither a villain nor a protagonist, she's a pawn. We root for her, understand her fears and motivations, even when she holds the gun on Alejandro for the second time as he leaves her apartment.
Hope this doesn't read as me just going outta my way to be contrarian; I love this movie too, man; enjoy back and forth about this stuff a lot, too much sometimes, haha! Bummed I'm just now reading your perspective on it. Video's four years old now!
This is the equivalent of saying Chris Cuomo is just a journalist while he runs about the media landscape actively interfering with events.
@@cummins24421 I dont watch Chris(?), but if you disagree with me, that's quite alright. Feel like I explained myself pretty well. Wanna elaborate on your end, give counter points or anything? It's alright if you dont wanna.
in the big scheme of things, she isn't a villain. she's a good and caring person even though she's a little self-righteous. however life requires compartmentalization because what needs to be done is not always what we wish to be done, and we have to possess the ability to effectively judge a situation and sometimes apply ethics fluidly for different circumstances. with that in mind, it's pretty clear to see that within the compartment Kate existed for this movie, she pretty much was a villain in a lot of ways to the team and to the mission and to the innocents who suffered longer because of bureaucrats like her valuing rules above necessity or justice.
if you were running to save a family member from drowning in a lake and someone persistently kept getting in your way because of something they deemed to demand your immediate attention, in that moment they would be a villain to you and you'd be right; especially if you explained the situation and they defiantly continued to impede your efforts.
@@spartanical I get that you're attempting to draw a parallel, but stick with the first bit of what you wrote; you changed it mid way again.
Think what helps bolster the argument in Kate's favor is to see her as an idealist, and that her counterpart views the solution as killing not only the leaders, but their families as well.
The US government is in opposition to this, but only by way of a sort of Pontius Pilot stance. "We'll give ya what you want (the opportunity for vengeance) if you do x." Alejandro obliges this.
I don't think compartmentalization, or the act of accepting the evils that must be done to combat evil itself and being able to set those aside to meet an end game, yields one with the ability to kill children. I think this alone sets Kate out of this 'villain' category. Impending progress based off of a difference in opinion rooted in law and common morality isn't remotely villainous.
Also, recall while asking others to see her as a villain that the US government (in the film), along with Alejandro and Graver, pick her specifically because of her ideological beliefs. They knowingly choose someone with an intensely different perspective on how to fight that 'war' so that they can cover their tracks. Happens with the end scene, and, well, they're vindicated, because she doesn't shoot Alejandro, she signs the paper work they want her to sign, and in turn this gets eyes off of them, much they wanted from the start, hiring on a straight laced by the books 'idealistic FBI agent' to cover them.
Mercer is against that notion (an eye for an eye), while Graver turns, well, a blind eye and allows Alejandro to wreak havoc, which in turn benefits all three of them because they make a substantial wound in the dark underworld Alarcon aids in maintaining, which is their collective mission and aim.
@@beanie1089 nothing changed. the second bit supports the first. it was an example that demonstrates that it doesn't always matter what an individual's motivation, character, intention or whatever is. if they're in the way and blocking attempts to set something right, then in that moment, if circumstance is dire enough, they are a "villain".
it's a figure of speech, not character analysis. something serious absolutely had to be done, and she was on a team that had that responsibility. they didn't bring her on to be their conscience. you already explained why they brought her.
she should have immediately grown up and accepted that nothing at that level is black and white. instead she became a willful obstacle.
you likened her to a pawn, but a pawn is only meant to be an obstacle to the opponent.
Slightly ironic to consider Alejandro as the hero / Kate the villain considering he kills children in cold blood, the exact kind of blunder people who are stuck up about the law want to avoid. And then, he has no issue to coerce her to cover up for him - all the while everything is supposed to be in order and she's just a mean, obsessed, evil character? I think she's simply an antihero, like much of the team, and you really have to take Alejandro's angle to, perhaps, see Kate as a villain.
the perfection of this movie is that she's simultaneously the villain, bystander, audience, a sheep, etc.
Beautiful analysis! Radical, but not unjustified. I'm less comfortable calling Kate a villian (intentions count and her intentions aren't evil, she just can't reconcile her naive ideals with reality). Her growth is from certitude to confusion and ambivalence. That's her growth.
But positing Alejandro as the real protagonist, I love that. I don't take it literally but as a way of highlighting that his crusade is the only fully motivated one and motivated at such a deep level.
He was a notoriously driven prosecutor. He took great risk to put the murderous cartels destroying his country and terrorizing it's people behind bars. Then his family was gruesomely murdered by the cartels to send him and all like him a message.
But instead of drinking himself to death or some other ineffectual response--he combined his desire to bring criminals to justice with his new need for Revenge. This makes him a pretty unstoppable Avenging Angel.
What gives us pause is what happens the the cartel leader's innocent children. The leader, and his wife--they chose their path. Those child were innocent bystanders. At least what Alejandro did was swift and in that way somewhat merciful. Not like the depraved way his family was murdered.
Sicario is a Great Movie.
I would say Kate is an unsympathetic protagonist because her goals are incoherent. She wants to make a difference And she wants to defend methods that make No difference.
Again, her arc is from naive, self righteous certitude to profound confusion. That's not an inspiring place for her to end up but it is a much more adult place for her to be.
She'll have to integrate what she's learned and reinvent herself.
Alejandro is the hidden co protagonist. His pursuit of justice before and after the murder of he's family is the unexpected, originally unrevealed emotional core of the film. That's why the climax is all about him. His terrible ultimate victory, that will strain his soul forever because those children were the collateral damage...
Profound, unanswerable, heart breaking. What other choice did he have??
I have some further thoughts on the film which I'll add as comments to this.
My reactions to "Sicario: An Exploration of Good and Evil"
ua-cam.com/video/RBHctWjOuwk/v-deo.html
5:20 "Some people find it jarring..."
Yes! I noticed that when I saw the film just last night. It almost felt like I was suddenly watching a different movie.
Throughout it had either been Kate's fish out of water perspective or an ensemble of perspectives. Then suddenly the most impactful thing in the movie happens, and we're just with Alejandro in an intense way for a relatively extended period.
But You're Right--that deviation from formal continuity is justified by the tremendous weight of the scene.
No one is on the inside the way Alejandro is. He's paid the ultimate price in what happened to his family. He's the most wounded. His reaction in the dinner scene is far and anyway the most morally daunting event in the movie.
However swiftly, he includes two complete innocents in his retribution. (I'm trying to keep this comment spoiler free. Forgive the vague abstractions.)
I could ponder forever whether I'm apalled by what Alejandro did in the climax. And in the denouement.
A man with a lesser excuse would disgust me. But Alejandro has the ultimate justification for his campaign of revenge...
Beautifully morally ambitious, creating truly uncomfortable moral ambivalence.
I wish life weren't this way--but while it is, I have infinite respect for filmmakers who can reveal that to us while we sit safely in our living rooms.
It is a deep lesson that anyone who wishes to live in reality needs to learn...
*
I wouldn't say that the distraction between good and evil in the end is a children's game
(The soccer game to me shows innocent life already interrupted and filled with fear and resignation by the cartel.)
Despicable though Matt and Alejandro's methods may be, they're trying to curb brutal murders. I only saw 3/4 of the film when I caught it already in progress on TV last night. But the children in the dinner were the only innocents I saw the members of Matt's team kill. It's not a moral equivalence. It's a profound blurring of moral distinctions that doesn't erase them.
If these truly want to help, they should do what Milton Freedman and do many others have recommended: Legalize drugs.
As things stand: Recreational users are looking to alter their mood and consciousness. Just as those who drink legal alcohol and smoke now semi legal pot do. But their preferred way of doing so comes with the incredible moral tax of knowing that their usage supports these animals. It's the law that inspires the crime.
Addiction would go up somewhat, but we could relocate resources to helping addicts. And we'd be disincentivizing these vicious cartels from continuing their illegal trade and protecting it by gruesomely murdering any one who gets in their way. As happened to Alejandro's family.
(You referred to him as a former hit man. In the dinner scene the top boss calls him "the grieving lawyer," I thought he was originally a lawyer (probably an idealist taking risks to make a difference) who's family was targeted by the cartels to be murdered to intimidate and punish Alejandro.
That in itself, and their killing methods (merciful to innocents versus depraved) distinguishes them.)
The legal pot trade can be unethical in various ways, but it does not inspire the cruel crimes it did when pot was illegal (see Savages).
Radical though it is, we pretty clearly should legalize drugs and stop trying to control the choices that adults make about whether and what substances to use.
So long as we don't--we're creating the cartels.
You can blame the users, but without the law prices would drop, the drug trade could be regulated, and the incentive to rip these countries about to pursue High profit crime would be gone.
So who's supporting and Creating the cartel? The users, or those keeping an unenforceable law in place?
Maybe the real evil is lack of courage in the political class, using a fig leaf law to show their decency and thereby creating indecency.
This is the same belief held by those creeps who thought Skylar was the villain of Breaking Bad.
Awful take.
@The bull Dearest pissboy,
I ain't reading that shit.
Stay mad,
Conchobhar
@The bull something boy
There's no heroes or villains in this film... it's meant to be morally ambiguous and that the ends don't always justify the means.
Damn I never thought that the means and ends argument could've been flipped like that. Subbed.
I love one of the points that this film makes via Josh Brolins character when he mentions that this won't end until weak people stop doing massive amounts of drugs, feeding the monster.
Which is a poor point of view on his part, because the crime comes from the false paradigm of drug illegality which supports the black market. legalisation and rehabilitation would have stopped the cartels in their tracks. Instead they are offered a perfect opportunity.
Drug dealers and users should be shot to death.
@@dubrob210 Feed em too the pigs Errol
Pathetic, really. But bully for you feeling superior to those "weak minded" people who use "drugs."
Really, they should be more "strong-minded" and use Rx from their pill-pushing MD -- Xanax, Prozac, Nembutal, Oxycontin, etc -- right? That would be "strong-minded," right?
I completely agree! Kate was a very poor choice for this assignment as she was far too inflexible and unwilling to look for more creative/effective methods.
On paper she was a great choice. A crystal clean fed with no attachments to confide in (Matt asks her about personal life before they even offer the opportunity) who just got dealt a slap of reality that demands going beyond routine protocol for justice. They didn't need her to agree with what they were doing. They needed a representative to sign that the CIA were able to operate locally. That's all.
I'm glad somebody came up with an explanation because every time I see this movie, I am like what the hell is wrong with this woman I'll be calling her some names.😅