Note: This is not a review of Sicario. This is a lunatic’s (me) random feelings on what Sicario has done to me and why I can’t write a thoughtful review of this film, and copy and paste for all films that fall into this category for me.

Every once in a while I see a film that I battle with. It’s not because I dislike it, it’s because I don’t dislike it, or so I tell myself.

There are so many ways for you to look at a movie. It can be entertaining, enlightening, interesting, soothing, and the list goes on and on. I honestly believe that if you can earnestly attribute any of those (including the infinite options not listed) then that movie can be a great movie for you.

I, by trade, am a technical person. I work in computing and technology. On a daily basis I work with meters, logs, data and definite numbers. Art on the other hand is the complete opposite of that. When it comes to art, no matter how many stars or scales you scroll down to skipping over all the commentary online, is measureless when it comes to human’s response to it. Which is what we’re trying our best to elaborate on in all these billions of words written on a daily basis on the same exact films, songs, paintings, etc.. As it relates to film, more so than the other forms of art, there is a technical aspect to it. Once the pages are set then it’s handed over the technical people, the sound technicians, the lighting crew, the camera operator; their job is the capture everything they can to express what the writer did so well with nothing but pen and paper. I explain this very obvious fact to help make you understand my dilemma. I battle with some films because it’s really easy sometimes for me to break a film up into technical achievements. As I see a framing that’s so well lit or a fight sequence that is choreographed so tightly, I view that the work put in by that team shows so prominently that I can’t disgrace it. I respect technical people, because I am one.

So how do I separate technical acknowledgements from the artistic overall emotional response that art gives us? At times it’s hard. Which is why I battle with myself on films like this week’s film, Sicario. As with all of Villeneuve’s last three efforts that I’ve seen they are technical master classes of how to capture images and design elaborate sequences of motion to tell a progressing narrative. From Incendies’ bus ride to Sicario’s raid on the tunnel, from the moment Villeneuve steps on set to watch the filmming of a scene he has a master grasp of how to get it done and get it done perfectly. I’m certain that if I were to read more into people talking of his process he would be the perfect hybrid of Jackie Chan’s work ethic and David Fincher’s obsessiveness. And how do I hate on that?

On the other hand the emotion just isn’t there. I explain my feelings on this movie to be a film where I can spit out the line ‘it’s not quite a sum of it’s parts’. That meaning that at times with this movie when I take it piece by piece it is a perfect piece of cinematic thriller crime action that takes us into this drug world and how a rogue outfit is working to cripple the dangerous and sadistic drug trade in Mexico; which is pretty much what I beg every movie to do for me. At the same time if I put it all together and try to chew it up in one whole meal then it’s almost as if I get that stomach ache that you get when you mother tells you not to eat too much candy and you do it anyways. I leave the movie feeling discombobulated and unable to fully express how I feel because of all the reasons above. It’s like I have the words ‘I don’t like it‘ stuck on the tip of my tongue and catch it because the other half of my brain is reminding me of all the reasons I have listed above which I’ve acknowledged.

At the end of it all I sit here in despair. Unable to form a defined opinion where I almost am challenging myself to watch the film again, and yes I’ve done that already, with the infinite hope that I can turn it around. My artistic side of the my brain will finally pair up with the technical side and come into agreement, whatever it is. The truth of it however is that sometimes, and Sicario seems like one of those times, it doesn’t happen. It’s like an abusive relationship where every time I go back to the film wanting the resolution I feel I the viewer deserves, but I keep leaving the film with these feelings unresolved.