Slow & Overrated

Rating: 3/10 (16 December 2015)

I don't understand why this movie has such a high rating - I think people respect the director and actors involved so much that they can't see past that and honestly review it.
The score was unique and fit with the overall tone of the movie. By far, the crowning jewel of this movie was the cinematography. There are some gorgeous shots in this film.
The acting was good - but the characters and the writing seemed stereotypical and haphazard. It's like they wrote the outline to a high school paper but never actually made it an essay. The characters' motivations and back stories are glossed over, with the exception of Del Toro's character, and even his back story is explained in a matter of seconds, although that's all you really need to grasp the concept. His character is by far the most interesting part of the movie.
Blunt, despite playing the "main character," gets NO back story, with the exception of knowing that she is divorced and for some reason her partner feels the need to constantly bring up the fact that she wears comfortable clothing in her downtime, like for some reason she should dress up and do her makeup to sit around at home as though that would signify that she has moved on from her ex husband. The one time she tries to hook up with a dude (apparently for the first time in years - which is a miracle, clearly, because her hair was in a bun and she wasn't dressed up - DEAR Christ), he tries to kill her because he is a rogue agent working for the cartel. This is a completely unnecessary aspect of the plot and it actually felt like they had to work really hard to fit this in, because Emily Blunt's partner has known this dude FOR YEARS. Overall, her character is written very lazily and it feels flat. She's a total stereotype - hardened female agent that somehow keeps letting these dang emotions get in the way of the mission. She does everything by the book and has a real issue with the....looser morals of the team she is assigned to work with. Except she gets over that issue in about five minutes, and then she wants to be fully immersed in this operation despite the illegalities involved. Until the end...when she OVER THREAT OF DEATH WITH A GUN TO HER THROAT tries to refuse to sign a paper stating the operation was by the books. She has suddenly reclaimed her moral high ground for no apparent reason.
Let's talk about Josh Brolin's character. He is irritating. I can almost begin to see why Emily Blunt's character is on an emotional roller coaster, because they don't tell her anything. They interviewed her and brought her into this operation, yet when she inquires as to why they're doing something they just brush her off until she harps enough (gosh darn nagging woman, wanting to know what she's gotten herself into) for them to finally throw some tidbits of information at her. This is because they only brought her along to finagle through some legal loophole, yet this doesn't really matter in the long run, because everything they do is illegal or sketchy anyway, regardless of her presence. Brolin's character is flippant, not well fleshed out, and he is the epitome of the "I've been doing this forever so I know better than you" jaded agent. "Just trust me" "You're in or you're out" "That's how the real world works, Emily Blunt, you annoying shrew" sums up his character. He wears sandals to the office one time - HOW JADED!!
Benicio's character - the most interesting plot is given the least amount of focus. The leader of this cartel that they are after killed his wife and daughter a long time ago. He's acting as a hit- man for hire working alongside the agency to unearth the whereabouts of this guy so they can....I dunno....cut down on or eliminate cartel activity (because they found a house full of bodies at the beginning of the movie! Oh wait, did I forget to mention that?! It's because it's completely irrelevant and is never brought up again. It's a plot device to quickly and gruesomely say "The cartel is bad. Look, they killed these people and stuffed them in walls. This movie is a thriller, remember?!") So well into the second half of the movie, he goes off on his own and methodically kills his way to this cartel leader's house, where he is conveniently eating dinner with his family. I will not tell you exactly what happens, as it is the only scene in this movie I would call tense or thrilling in any way, but it's safe to say he gets his revenge in a somewhat unexpected manner. I would have honestly preferred it if the whole movie was told from his perspective and there were some flashbacks to his past included. This would have made for an enticing thriller.
So, in summation - flat characters, in addition to the fact that the movie drags and has an extremely disjointed feeling to it, really left me feeling like I had wasted a couple hours. Not much happens and not much progress is made in the first half of the movie, and you're left wondering how certain things are relevant to the plot at all. It doesn't feel like this was well thought out. This film was attempting to be a gritty action thriller, but I felt almost no suspense. I was bored for over 75% of the movie. I know all the people involved with this film are capable of much better work, so I'm not really sure why it turned out the way that it did. Something got lost in the process, clearly. I wouldn't recommend it.