Her character is an idiot and completely unbelievable. She threatens the CIA, and has no simpathy for Benicio Del Toro's character after hearing about the fate of his wife and daughter. What is she trying to do take down the CIA Operatives because they are not prosecuting the drug dealers on Money laundering ? Her liberal minded plan is naive and stupid, her annoying character ruined the movie
shareAgreed. Great movie though, I give it a 10. I don't understand the appeal of smoking though, she's obviously a chain smoker in real life. I know her husband is a heavy smoker by his own admission. Don't ever try to figure out the liberal mindset, you'll drive yourself crazy. Love Del Toro though, just an amazingly great actor. He makes any movie worthwhile.
share@hoov-4 What does the liberal mindset have to do with smoking?
shareWhen did John Krasinski admit to smoking cigarettes? I assume you mean cigs and not pot. I had to check after reading your comment and nothing points to him being a smoker.
The rug really tied the room together.
I don't understand the appeal of smoking though, she's obviously a chain smoker in real life. I know her husband is a heavy smoker by his own admission. Don't ever try to figure out the liberal mindset, you'll drive yourself crazy.
I agree that her character was annoying but for very different reasons than the other two posters here. And I can't imagine why you'd classify her attitudes as liberal. There was nothing in her character to indicate liberal or conservative allegiances or philosophies. She was a by the book agent (which is a personality type you find on both ends of the spectrum) who was in way over her head who should have run in the opposite direction as soon as she understood what was going on. That's the kind of operation you either agree to be a part of or disengage from once you realize the true objective. What annoyed me about her is that she kept thinking she was going to be able to convince them or order them to discontinue or change their mission. And telling your opponent 'I'm going to tell on you' is so cliche and outrageously stupid. She really thought she was going to shut down an operation like that because she didn't think it was ethical? Um...no. Finally, the fact that she kept crying over it all bugged me. Pick a side, lady. Take a stand and live that decision. Go along and sign the paper then get out and go somewhere that you feel you can operate within your ethics and still make a difference. Chalk the experience up to a lesson learned and a fork in your road and get over it. Or refuse to sign. But if you do, disappear quickly because they're not likely to let you live. Go somewhere, lay low and figure out how to move on with your life. But don't just sit around crying about it because that character shouldn't have been as naive at the end of the movie as she was at the beginning. That's what bothers me about her character.
As for feeling sympathy for Del Toro's character, he was just as bad as the people who killed his family. He murdered an innocent woman and children at their own dinner table. They didn't deserve his punishment anymore than his family deserved what happened to them. The whole point of the movie, it seems to me, is that the cycle continues. And all the good intentions and law enforcement agents in the world can't stop it. The players may change but the pieces move on all the same squares and the game continues in all the same ways. That's how I saw it anyway.
"But don't just sit around crying about it because that character shouldn't have been as naive at the end of the movie as she was at the beginning. That's what bothers me about her character." Agreed, bpoz. You would have thought that after her boss told her the boundary had been moved, she would come around or just refuse to participate anymore. But,yet she still is naive to the end. The scene when she tells Matt she is going to snitch on him and the scene with Alejandro at the end. Who is she going to talk to? The same people who approved the operation?
shareUnfortunately her naive point of view isn't unique or unrealistic in this day and age.
shareI agree. Del Toro was awesome. The woman reminded me a lot of the main character in Rob Zombie's Halloween 2. Winey and erratic cussing unnecessarily. Jeffrey Donovan's character had a UTI and even he put her to shame. Her partner wasn't much of an improvement either.
shareYeah, killing children is so fu****ng awesome.
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As the film moves on, her intense nativity, little street smarts and grand moral standards get more and more annoying to the point that you really dislike her character. Even in the end, she still doesn't get it. It is normally what can make movies great; look at "Training Day" with Denzel Washington.
It also undermines the premise of her being a leader or even part of a tactical team.
I just watched this and I'm still trying to figure out what she was so morally opposed to. The first operation was likely legal, as the Mexican government was well aware of it and was fully cooperative. She showed outrage that they shot the guys at the border, but what the **** did she want them to do? The hit squad was armed to the teeth and drew their weapons. Even local police would open fire in that situation.
In the second incursion all of the action was across the border and in the tunnel. These were not innocent civilians, they were heavily armed cartel workers who were engaging in a fire fight. The scene in the warehouse was even more bizarre. Again, what was she suppose to be outraged about? She was FBI operating in Mexico, there is no "by the book". She was basically there to observe. She had no idea what was going to happen after that, so why draw your weapon on a team member? So she helped make a major bust of the cartel while also uncovering corrupt cops in the Phoenix PD, yet she is outraged over an officially sanctioned CIA operation in Mexico? Her character and her outrage were almost laughable.
Good points on both account, It isn't the fault of the actress though.
She was a miscast (her physic is just too small and frail, like some have mentioned) and her character was awfully written.
Why is a drug lord obsessed with paperwork in the end? What was that all about? I thought the other guy did the administration. He looked more suited for that kind of role in the team anyways.
I think the paper work was a test. He wanted to see if she would set aside her principals to continue to fight as needed. That is why when she didn't sign he told her to move to a small town where "they still believe in the rule of law".
shareAre you saying he is a drug lord because they called him Medellion? I was confused by that.
Del Toro was a hot *beep* throughout this movie but I didn't realize bringing things to order meant him being back into control... as the Medellion. Interesting, I have to watch this more.. though I have to ignore that character played by Emily Blunt... she should have been in awe of the people she was working with, as opposed to pulling a gun on one and punching the other... that was weird. Happy for clarification if you understood that better.
Wow the entire plot "twist" completely flew over your head. He is not called "The Medallion" lol, the cartel guy says "Medellin" as in the Medellin Drug Cartel (founded by Pablo Escobar and Ochoa brothers in Colombia). Benicio isn't Department of Defense or CIA but a straight up Medellin drug cartel operative working alongside the CIA. This is what she is what she figures out and why she pulls the gun on him. She is disgusted that the CIA is working with one evil to defeat another. I barely paid attention to the movie but this much was obvious.
Right, Medellin refers to the Medellin Drug Cartel. But as James Brolin's character explains to Kate, after the shootout in the tunnel complex, that "Medellin refers to a time when one group controlled every aspect of the drug trade, providing a measure of order that we could control...and "order is the best we can hope for." Alejandro was "working toward returning that order."
shareHey "Velvetjoneslives", I was going to post something about this movie, but your post said e x a c t l y, 100% what I was going to type! :) I totally agree. On all points. And, it's nice to see that I'm not alone in these opinions.
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"Have a good time, ALL the time. That's my philosophy Marty"
I genuinely can't believe that people still can't imagine enough of a world existing outside of their own perspective in order to assess how someone else might be feeling. The reasons for Kate's discomfort are obvious to anyone with even the slightest ability to read between the lines - you shouldn't need it spelled out for you.
Kate's a by-the-book FBI officer, whose training and entire career, up until this point, has been deliberately designed by the administration to showcase:
>The apparent sanctity of the law
>That doing things by the law is apparently the way to make the world a better place
>That morality and ethics are the virtues which create a distinct line between 'us' and 'them' (hence providing credence to the idea that our laws are, fundamentally, 'lawful')
It's hardly surprising that she's a bit uncomfortable throughout the events of the movie. Let's look at the things she has to be upset about:
>Being lied to continually from the start of the movie about who she's working for. This is a huge one - even when it's not obvious they're necessarily CIA, it's obvious they need Kate on the team. She essentially has the power to allow or deny this operation at any stage, and so she is ultimately morally responsible for everything that happens during and after the operation. Until she speaks to her superior at the FBI, she also has cause for concern regarding her legal complicity. Even after that conversation, it's still possible that she's working for a group which is prepared to go far beyond the remit granted to them by the elected authority. The goalposts have been moved, but no one tells Kate where they've been moved to. At no point in the movie can she be safe in the knowledge that what's going on around her has explicitly been approved on a legal or ethical level. Then there's the aforementioned moral concerns Kate herself will understandably have. Essentially, for the entire movie, Kate is being pulled along by what could very well be a rogue element operating entirely under their own rule-set, and she could be the one enabling them to do it.
>The shootout on the border. Kate says herself that she isn't a soldier. The idea of unloading on a car full of people, the killing of many of which would not have been legally justifiable in an American court of law, around hundreds of civilians, then driving away as if nothing happened, is understandably alien to her. At this stage, she still has no idea who she's really working with. Whilst it was obvious that their actions were ultimately right from a tactical perspective, the casualness with which the actions were executed and perceived by the rest of the team could cause her to doubt the credibility of that team to be leading an inter-agency task force, which, generally, requires a stalwart of convention and law. Her team come across like trigger-happy cowboys.
>It's obvious they used torture to extract information from Diaz's relative. This has nothing to do with being overly liberal in nature. The use of torture is polarizing on all levels of the political and ethical spectrum. Kate is obviously concerned by this.
>They used her as bait. Shouldn't really need to explain why this might not be the most effective way to build team cohesiveness and trust.
>Extra-judicial killings: see torture. For someone who's spent their entire professional career with the FBI, the perceived potential implications of allowing this to go ahead (which is what she would be doing by turning a blind eye to it) cannot be overstated. When the person carrying out those extra-judicial killings is really a totally unknown player (which Del Toro is), working for a team whose actions may or may not be sanctioned by any higher authority (remember, she isn't told where the goalposts are now), then the issue is compounded a thousand times. Kate might have spent her whole career being by-the-book, but she's obviously aware that methodology like 'fighting evil with evil' is used by certain factions on her side of the fight. She's not that naive. And, like everyone else, she'll also have her own ideas about the value of this approach (it's alleged benefits for achieving an actual outcome vs the ethical and legal concerns). And there's absolutely no reason she should be convinced that what they're doing is the 'right' way of dealing with the situation, since the success of this methodology in real life is never consistent - sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Kate's spent years fighting 'evil' people who are doing 'evil' things, and whilst she can see that her by-the-book operations aren't effective, it's not at all stupid for her not to immediately jump to approving the 'let's get into bed with an equal but more controllable evil' approach. The ending scene of the movie only exists to showcase that Brolin and Del Toro's actions may not be any more successful than Kate's. So to come here and suggest that Kate was wrong, when the movie has purposefully been made in such a way that it's impossible to say whether she's right or wrong by the end of it, is arrogant and woefully misguided.
People who criticize Kate's approach, her inner conflicts, and her 'liberal mindset' are people who don't fundamentally understand the actual drug conflict, and blindly accept that Del Toro's approach of fighting evil with evil is the truly effective course of action, just because he's the protagonist of the movie. In real life, the value of fighting evil with evil is inconsistent and distorted, and Kate is simply the embodiment of that uncertainty. I would have personally preferred it if she hadn't signed the form, but it was obviously symbolic of what humankind on a whole is prepared to do when a gun (a raging drug war) is pressed against your head (is occurring on your borders). She should have shot him though, to show that the evil you use to your ends one day, is the evil you end up fighting the next day.
Because being used for their mission and then not getting the truth on briefing really puts a person in a comfortable state, especially going against the cartel. Care to trade places with her?
At any rate, her liberal acting was great.
On point. I'm actually surprised a product of leftist Hollywood was "allowed" to portray liberal, utopian characters as, well, not much more than just that: liberal, utopian, holier-than-thou and more or less brainwashed by socialist propaganda cliches. But this is why her character was necessary to contribute to the point of the movie: that ...reality "bites" everyone sooner or later. And a war can only be won by...fighting, instead of pretending to fight.
This movie is diametrically opposite to "Traffic", which really was a predictable piece of Hollywood leftist-propaganda.
No idea why you guys keep calling her character liberal. Because she wanted to do things correctly and by the law?
Yes the whole operation came from politicians up above, but that doesn't make it legal. They were still running with a hitman from the Columbian cartel.
Note, I still don't like her character, if anything her pathetic attempt to try and shoot Alejandro at the end was stupid and also totally conflicts with her by the book nature. But I'm still not calling her liberal.
her partner is even worse
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