Tag: Taylor Sheridan

Cinema Dispatch: Sicario: Day of the Soldado

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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Sicario: Day of the Soldado and all the images you see in this review are owned by Columbia Pictures

Directed by Stefano Sollima

You know what I thought when I got out of the first movie?  This is PRIME material for a franchise!  Yeah, the first Sicario was a dark journey through the worst aspects of the War on Drugs which felt REALLY complete as a story, but after it made a boat load at the box office the studio couldn’t help itself from squeezing as much money out of this cash cow as they could which HOPEFULLY means we’ll get a crossover with The Fast and the Furious franchise, but until then we’ll have to get stuck with more straightforward entries of vastly diminishing returns.  Okay, that’s a little unfair.  After all, it’s not like you COULDN’T make another movie with this cast, and the premise seems like a great starting point to bring up issues surrounding immigration and border patrol that have only become more exacerbated since the last film came out!  Wishful thinking I suppose, but you’ve gotta have SOME amount of hope, right!?  Will this be a great and topical sequel to an already fantastic movie, or was this project doomed long before it had a chance to say something important about our current political climate?  Let’s find out!!

Following the events of the first film, Matt Graver and Alejandro Gillick (Josh Brolin and Bencio del Toro) seem to have parted ways at least for the time being as the former is still running operations at the border while the latter is waiting for another chance to hit hard against the Cartel.  The good news is that such an opportunity has presented itself and will lead to their most drastic and bloody mission yet!  The bad news though is that said chance only happened because terrorist blew up a grocery store in Kansas City where at least one of them seems to have gotten into the country illegally from the border (ugh…) and might have even gotten a bit of help from the Cartel.  With a blank check from the government to mess things up in Mexico, Matt decides to kidnap the daughter of one of the Cartel bosses down there (Isabela Moner)  and then blame it on one of the other Cartel bosses; causing a civil war within the country that will decimate their stranglehold on the area.  Things SORT of go off without a hitch, but once it’s time for them to return the girl under the guise of “finding her” across the border, things go sideways as Matt and Alejandro’s crew is ambushed and the girl runs off into the desert.  Alejandro goes for the girl while Matt and the rest head back to base in Texas, but all is well as the ambush has made things more complicated than they should be and it’ll be that much harder for Matt and Alejandro to find a way to resolve this without stabbing each other, the US government, or anyone else, directly in the back.  Can Alejandro not only find this girl but find a way to keep her safe from those who wish her harm?  Just how far will Matt go for Alejandro, and will he be forced to choose between his friend and his duty?  Wait, how are we supposed to be rooting for these guys now!?  You SAW what they did in the last film, right!?

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“BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG!!”

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Cinema Dispatch: Wind River

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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Wind River and all the images you see in this review are owned by The Weinstein Company

Directed by Taylor Sheridan

It’s always fun to go into a movie COMPLETELY blind; knowing nothing more than the title and MAYBE a poster.  While I would never decry trailers which in and of themselves can sometimes be MORE entertaining than the movie their advertising (*cough* Suicide Squad *cough*), they invariable lead to expectations which can be either a good or bad thing for the finished product.  This is one that I went in without knowing the slightest bit about it aside from Jeremey Renner’s face and cowboy hat being front and center, so hey!  How bad could it be!?  Let’s find out!!

The movie begins in the harsh wildness that is Northern Wyoming where we follow Cory Lambert (Jeremy Renner) who’s a US Fish and Wildlife Service agent that serves the Wind River Indian Reservation.  During his regular duties of hunting predators in the snot freezing cold, he comes across the body of a local girl named Natalie (Kelsey Chow) who not only froze to death in the snow but seems to have been raped as well.  With the help of the local sheriff Ben (Graham Greene) and a rookie FBI agent Jane Banner (Elizabeth Olsen) the three of them try to do what they can to find out what really happened to the girl and to bring her parents Martin and Annie (Gil Burmingham Annie Hanson) at least some degree of closure.  Of course Cory, being a hunter, might have other plans that Jane or even Ben wouldn’t be aware of.  Will Cory find the person responsible for the death of Natalie, and does he have a personal connection to this case that could be clouding his judgement?  Will Jane survive in this harsh world long enough to realize how much she still needs to learn?  Wait, why are we focusing on these two?  Something seems a bit off about that…

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Sure looks like a lot of white stuff is trying to get in the way!

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Cinema Dispatch: Hell or High Water

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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Hell or High Water and all the images you see in this review are owned by CBS Films and Lionsgate

Directed by David Mackenzie

Can we say award season is in full swing now?  Have we run out of DC films to be disappointments after collecting half a bajillion dollars instead a full bajillion?  Sure, Doctor Strange is in November and we’ve got a few more animated kids films to suffer through, but the deluge of lightweight and over budgeted boom-a-palooza is over?  Well we can only hope, but what we should be hoping for even MORE is that the Oscar bait this year is up to snuff and not a bunch of studio films that cut the budget and let the actors look pensive for minutes on end set in World War 2.  At least with this movie, things seem to be off to a good start as this is a down and dirty Texas crime movie starring well known genre actors as well academy award winning ones!  Will this be one of the best films of the year (Oscar bait or otherwise), or is there just a bunch of hot air surrounding a mediocre actioner?  Let’s find out!!

The movie begins with two kinda dopey dudes robbing a small time bank in a small time town in East Texas.  They manage to get away clean, more so out of dumb luck than their own skill, but I guess that’s the advantage of robbing bum-fuck nowheres-ville.  The two end up hitting a few more places in a similar manner, also getting though it by the skin of their teeth, and this gets the attention of Texas Ranger Marcus Hamilton (Jeff Bridges) who’s on the verge of retirement but thinks he can nab these two before he finishes up his tenure.  He drags along his partner Alberto (Gil Birmingham) to check on those places that have been hit and see if they can predict where the two are gonna strike next, all the while running into reminds of how miserable these areas are due to the recent recession.  Our nominal heroes by the way, brothers Tanner and Toby Howard (Ben Foster and Chris Pine) are victims of said misery, but their exact motivations aren’t clear yet as to why they’re raising money and how much of it they need.  Will the cops stop the robbers before they can reach their goal?  What are Jeff Bridges chances of making it out of this alive considering he’s days from retirement?  Is it REALLY that hard to catch these dumb mother fuckers?

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“Start the car bro!”     “What the hell happened to careful planning and flawless execution!?”     “WILD CARD MOTHER FUCKER!!  YEEEEE-HAW!!”

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