Top 5 Performances: Bencio del Toro, Emily Blunt (and a bit on Josh Brolin)

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Continuing the Oscar hype! This time round, the underrated duo of 'Sicario' and their career works...
(although I must note, I think I've been underrating Josh Brolin a great deal as well for his fantastic work in the film too. So I'll do a little something on him too)

Del Toro

5. Savages

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The film itself is not particularly good, and in fact the ending can be best described as the biggest cop-out in recent cinematic history, completely ruining what could've been a fairly compelling climax into a farcical piece of...anyway, I'll leave it at that. Everyone else in the cast is quite dull, save John Travolta as a corrupt CIA agent is fun but also far too sidelined. Which leaves Mr. del Toro to carry the acting baggae as a (literal) moustache twirling villain., Miguel 'Lado' Arroyo. Not the most complex character ever, but del Toro manages to be both chillingly funny and menacingly grotesque, all within the same character and rather horrible, overblown film, really is testament to his talent as a character actor.

4. Traffic

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A different side of del Toro here to the one we get in Savages where he turns in one of his quietest, most understated performances. As a Mexican police officer who's trying to do the right thing in a drug-addled world of corruption, he employs remarkable restraint to make Javier Roudigrez a tough, but ultimately good-willed cop who, in contrast to the horrors around him, acts as our avatar through this world and creates a great deal of empathy and passion within the character that does well to act as the human factor for the film. A well-deserved Oscar indeed.

3. Inherent Vice

Here we have another side of del Toro, this time as the deadpan ball of comic relief in a film chock full of them, Inherent Vice. Where he could have so easily been lost amongst all the other excellent supporting turns in the film by Josh Brolin (yes I'll get to him soon), Martin Short, Jena Malone, Katherine Waterston, ERIC ROBERTS (yes, ERIC ROBERTS of all people) etc., del Toro carves out one hoot of a lovable oddity with Sauncho Smilax, Esq.. He acts as a perfect laconic counterpoint to Joaquin Phoenix's brilliant performance as Doc Sportello, and the way he just seems to stroll through the film, so effortlessly funny, is so hard to explain, but so fun to watch too.

2. 21 Grams

This is definitely one of those performances you'll either love or hate. Well I quite love it myself, even though I know some people are either turned off by the emotionally charged nature of the role, or think del Toro's approach here is flawed. I think the best performance I can compare this to is Javier Bardem's in Biutiful, in that both actors make such strange, off-kilter choices to depict their character's grief, but it works out beautifully. It really is a fascinating example of an actor both letting loose and yet oddly keeping it all rather underplayed too, in a way, sort of Boris Karloff-esque. He makes his scenes in the film the best scenes (especially in contrast to Naomi Watts and Sean Penn, two actors whom I normally like). Below, his highlight in the film for me:

1. Sicario


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I've talked a great deal about this performance on this blog already so I feel, like Alejandro the character within the film, I'll let the above clips do most of the talking, for those who've seen the film, to relive the brilliance that is del Toro's career best work in Sicario. If you still haven't seen him or the film yet, let me just describe this as the perfect piece of minimalist acting. Del Toro and director Dennis Villenueve worked together to cut down his character's lines, which works not only in further enshrouding the figure of the hitman in even more secrecy, but also allowed del Toro to further play to his strengths as an actor; that enigmatic quality of the character gradually unravelling is just magnificent to watch.

Blunt:

5. The Edge of Tomorrow

One of the most underrated action movies in recent years (and strangely so), The Edge of Tomorrow is just a great thrill ride from start to finish that's also quite intelligent. I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it, but the best scenes of the film are definitely the interactions between Tom Cruise's enjoyably humorous and deceptively complex Major William Cage, and badass action girl and humanity's greatest warrior Rita Vrataski, played by Emily Blunt. Blunt imbudes her role with such energy and sass, and makes the scenes which she bosses Cage around and trains him into the hero he needs to be, a great deal of fun to watch. When it comes to the serious, gritty action scenes she's surprisingly convincing as a badass who can take on an whole army of Mimics on her own, testament to both the excellence of her performance, and the very impreesive exercise regime she undertook for the role: http://thefix.ninemsn.com.au/2014/12/08/14/31/exclusive-from-onset-tears-to-her-gruelling-workout-routine-emily-blunt-talks-to-thefix

4. Looper

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A performance that has grown on me more and more with every re-watch. Though some might argue she's slightly overshadowed by the central plot of the film around Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis hunting down one another to prevent time-travel conondrums, I feel Blunt has become the highlight of the film for me with her incredibly subtle, but moving, performance as firstly, a mother who struggles to understand the child she has in her care, and then a determined Mother Wolf who's prepared to protect her at any cost, even with her own life. She makes what could've been a throwaway role, one of the trump cards of the film, and I hope some day she gets her own leading turn in a Rian Johnson movie as I feel the two of them work so well together.

3. Into the Woods

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I'm a sucker for film musicals and Into the Woods definitely hit me in all the sweet spots with regards to the genre. I don't think it's quite a flawless film but one aspect of it that definitely is, is Emily Blunt's depiction of the Baker's Wife. She has lovely chemistry with her onscreen hubby James Corden, and the duo handle the comic and emotional aspects of the film wonderfully, lighting up the screen with their chemistry and aptitude for musical numbers. Blunt moves seamlessly from the lighter to darker aspects of the fairlytale genre and gives one hell of a performance that has seriously been underpraised everywhere.

2. The Adjustment Bureau

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Even I somewhat question the placing of Blunt's performance in this film, this highly. After all it's quite a simple, straightforward leading lady role, effectively her take on Deborah Kerr's character in An Affair to Remember, a more subtle, nuanced take on the Manic Pixie Girl. All she really needs to do is have great chemistry with Matt Damon, which she does. But oh, she does so much more than that. Within the margins of the film, she's hilarious, she's charming, she's quietly moving when we see the struggles of her character with her emotions, and most importantly she makes Elsie Sellas such a beautifully heartfelt, lovable character that is makes nothing but complete sense, that Damon's David Norris is willing to risk everything for her.

1. Sicario

Blunt's terrific take on the 'idealistic fish-out-of-water agent' character by making her not some cocky, overly enthusiastic presence, but instead a far more effective, realistic portrayal of a hard-edged rookie with a subversive edge to her performance. The confidence of her character is well done and set up, as she steadfastly takes on gruesome circumstances, violent procedures and governmental fallacies with a great deal of vigour and righteous indignation, like in the fantastic briefing scene above, and in her private scenes showing the wear and tear of her line of work poignantly. The best part of her performance though is, through her gradual realisations of just how messed up things are around her, and her increasingly desparate attempts to make sense of this. Her final scene, I would argue, is among my top 5 best acted scenes of the year on both her and del Toro's behalf, but perhaps even more so by her, as she brings the film to such a powerful close with the impact she gradually builds the character of Kate Macy to.

Note: I still need to see The Young Victoria

Finally, a word or two on the criminally underrated Josh Brolin, an actor I like to think of as the 21st-Century's answer to Lee Marvin; a chiselled, good-looking, gruff and intangibly hardass sort of fella who has plenty more complexity and depth as an actor, than may be apparent at first sight. He's excellent in Sicario in playing a deceptively lax and amiable government official before tearing it all down rather disconcertingly, to reveal the cold pragmatist within. His whole career has been a long string of excellent work in both supporting (his lovely comedic turn in Inherent Vice, his uncouth corrupt police officer in American Gangster) to solid leading man turns in Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, No Country for Old Men and Oldboy, a depiction of George W. Bush I've yet to see but am very curious about, and one of my favourites of his, his impersonation, homage and all in all, splendid performance as Young Agent K in Men in Black III.

I can't wait to see his leading turn in Hail, Cesar! this year. Based on the trailer, he'll be nothing short of fantastic.