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I have been on a movie watching binge, but haven't seen that one yet. But I saw "The Martian" which was OK, but sort of predictable and boring. Great special effects though.

The sleeper of the fall in my opinion is "Sicario"

Wow, fantastic movie, led by Benicio del Toro, in the lead role of a mysterious anti-drug operative of the FedGov.

What I liked about this movie is it not only showed the chaos on the border, but the chaos in Mexico. And the fact that the chaos there is headed here is made explicitly. The young, tough woman FBI agent is schooled in the realities of Latino drug gang culture.

Along the way, while there is never any doubt about who the good guys are the level of moral ambiguity rises and rises.

The last scene in the movie, a coda really, could serve as an epitaph for our entire nation at this time; "this is a land of wolves now".

It had a pretty amazing 95% on Rotten Tomatoes and 4 stars from IMDB - ratings rarely achieved by any movie. Also, the cinematography is fantastic. The bleached out heat of the Sonoaran desert is well captured. And the location scenes from Juarez show the side of Mexico that is driving the millions of Mexicans into our once-peaceful nation and transforming it, especially the border area, into "the land of wolves".

Here is a snipit promo for the film.

I saw Sicario on Friday and loved it. Excellent film. Highly recommend it. Made me homesick for the desert southwest where I grew up and lived for decades. The harsh, stark environment plays right into the harsh reality of the script. The heavy movie soundtrack was ominous too and added to the film's naked reality.

Several locale scenes were familiar to me personally. The entrance to Luke AFB on the westside of Phoenix is shown as being surrounded by stark desert, when in fact it is surrounded by heavily populated, middle class, suburban homes with trees and lawns and backyard pools. The lone bar scene at the "Wild Horse" bar in the film, is in reality the Sliver Pony Country bar in South Phoenix. I recognized it immediately because my high school buddies and I would go there for drinks and settle our bets every Friday afternoon for twenty years after our weekly golf game. Best neighborhood bar ever. And in the early-to-mid-70s, I made frequent trips to Juarez with my friends when I was stationed in the Air Force at Holloman AFB, just north of El Paso in New Mexico. While it is rougher and more dangerous now than it was 40 years ago, it still was a rough border town and corridor for drugs back then too.

I believe if the Washington DC politicians and elites lived in this dangerous area along our southwest border controlled by the Mexican drug cartels and human trafficking criminals, that a secure border fence would have been built yesterday and the influx of illegal immigrants and the resulting increase in crime, would be stopped immediately. But because they live on the opposite side of the country from this trouble spot, they exist in their own bubble of ignorance and denial regarding illegal immigration and their desire for blanket amnesty, because it doesn't affect them directly.

Sicario is a great movie. If you don't like blood and guts, stay home. If you like lush, green landscapes, forget it. If you want comedy and romance, go see another film. But if you want to be seriously entertained by a film with a sharp edge, go see this film.