Villeneuve at his best

Rating: 10/10 (30 October 2016)

No director around makes movies as good as Denis Villeneuve, perhaps the most hopeful voice of major cinema around. This is his 4th major movie and one of his best, combining the harsh reality of 2013's Prisoners with an even more devastating world of Juarez, Mexico. The drug war that rages on in that city alone is never ending, and any attempts to stop it or contain it may prove futile. That doesn't keep the US government from trying in this not-so-fictional tale of the sacrifices people make in the name of keeping the peace. There is brilliant scene after brilliant scene combined with a screenplay that makes you care about even the smallest characters (in some ways making the small characters the most tragic of all). The cinematography of Roger Deakins is just the icing on the cake, literally showing off a melting pot of USA/Mexico borders and terrain.