A Quiet Place (2018)

[***1/2 stars / *****] 

By 2020, most humans will be killed and eaten up by blind, extraterrestrial creatures with extremely sensitive hearing abilities to loud noises. With impenetrable armors, these creatures are literally indestructible. 

A couple and their three children survive in a countryside home in utter silence while stepping out at times for supplies. The film begins with one such food-seeking expedition and keeps us riveted all through the wisely concise 95-minute running time. 

A Quiet Place cleverly uses silence to impose prolonged tension on the audience, making this a fairly intelligent horror flick. 

Director John Krasinski, also starring as the husband is effective in keeping it simple yet tight, cutting out the loopholes from the concept. 

Krasinski's cast choices are great too, featuring his wife Emily Blunt as the wife, Noah Jupe as the younger son. A brilliant choice is Millicent Simmonds (who is actually deaf) who plays the deaf daughter withholding a biting guilt within.     

But for some release from breath-stopping tension in parts, A Quiet Place is a refreshingly original horror flick with a very convincing end. Totally worth catching on the big screen. 

P.S: You may actually hear a lot of people munching popcorn and slurping soft drinks in the theatre because of the dialogue-less hush.  

Sicario (2015)

[**1/2 stars / *****] 

Sicario should have been titled: EPIC ANTICIPATION. 

You wait for something big to happen, thanks to the terrific Jóhann Jóhannsson's background score, only for the promised drama flame out to insignificance.

The makers of this take on the Mexican drug trade can't figure out where to linger. 

So it sluggishly flows from FBI agent Kate's (Emily Blunt, nicely done, badly sketched as a central character) point of view, giving us a mitigated view of proceedings, adding brutality, loss, and revenge, the latter as an unconvincing twist. 

Josh Brolin and Benicio del Toro are competent, but apart from sluggish atmospherics, there is not much to salvage here.   

One arresting part...

Picture a group of black SUV's moving relentlessly from the US to Mexico and back, with a prisoner in tow. 

Then, amidst a traffic snarl, gun-wielders from either side of the law, draw their weapons and wait.

This is the only time, apart from the first five minutes, and the unexpected finale, that Sicario comes alive.