Winning the War on drugs

Fresh from the lead action role in Edge of Tomorrow, Emily Blunt as FBI agent Kate Macer takes a back seat to the CIA, who is trying to address the drug problem infiltrating Arizona, Texas and the entire US southern border in their own unique way. The way of the Sicario – which as the movie clearly emphasizes at the beginning, means assassin. This is a must watch. I thought this would be about gunfights and drug mules, but the coldblooded realpolitik will get to you

15.5/20

Being yourself

Damian Hale (Ben Kingsley), real estate mogul, does not have long left to live. He finds his way to one Professor Albright (Matthew Goode) where through a process called "shedding", Damian is reborn as Edward (Ryan Reynolds). Things get complicated as Damian finds that the body that he now occupies actually belongs to one deceased Mark, and Mark's wife Madeline (Natalie Martinez), has been struggling to bring up their six year old daughter, since Mark's demise. Self/ less is at the heart a simple story of heart over mind, man over machine, well constructed

14/20

Alas!

Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner) is the sheet anchor central role in Alias. Without her tantalizing mix of emoting and physicality, this is a TV series that would simply fall apart. Consider the weaknesses in the plot. Do you seriously believe that something like the SD-6 is proliferant in the US in terms of the scale and scope? Are you expected to believe that it occurred to none of SD6's inmates that they have never been to, and never deal directly with, Langley (including to Sydney, for a period of (hold your breath - seven years))? Father and daughter, two double agents living under a knife, and their CIA handler, meet on an almost daily basis and even speak on the phone and exchange messages. And what on earth are the artifacts of Milo Rambaldi and the Nazi - allusion justifications of seeking the occult becoming a matter of national security? If it were not for Jennifer Garner, we would never have heard of this series. Having said that, one has to give some weightage I suppose to the sheer entertainment value of the series. The episodes, standalone, are engaging and if one simply skirts the complicity of believability, Alias is as good a timepass as any

10.5/20