''El Sicario, Room 164'' is a 2010

documentary film A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...

directed by Gianfranco Rosi and based on an article by

Charles Bowden Charles Clyde Bowden (July 20, 1945 – August 30, 2014) was an American non-fiction author, journalist and essayist based in Las Cruces, New Mexico. He was best known for his work documenting violence on the Mexico-United States border, espec ...

Synopsis

The film's subject is an anonymous

Ciudad Juárez Ciudad Juárez ( , ; "Juárez City"), commonly referred to as just Juárez (Lipan language, Lipan: ''Tsé Táhú'ayá''), is the most populous city in the Administrative divisions of Mexico, Mexican state of Chihuahua (state), Chihuahua. It was k ...

sicario derives from the Latin '' sicarius''. It may refer to: * ''Killer 77, Alive or Dead ''Killer 77, Alive or Dead'' (, ) is a 1966 Italian-Spanish Eurospy film directed by Mino Guerrini and starring Rod Dana. Marco Giusti. ''007 all'italiana'' ...

known to have killed hundreds. An expert in torture and kidnapping, he was employed by

Mexican drug cartels The Mexican drug war is an List of ongoing armed conflicts, ongoing Asymmetric warfare, asymmetric armed conflict between the Federal government of Mexico, Mexican government and various Drug cartel#Mexico, drug trafficking syndicates. When the ...

and the Chihuahua State Police simultaneously. In the film, he recounts his story to the camera inside the very hotel room he once used to hold and torture kidnapped victims, his face concealed by a black mesh hood. Using a marker and notepad, he illustrates his career of crime, murder, abduction, and torture. There exists a $250,000 bounty on his life.

Reception

''El Sicario, Room 164'' has a score of 76 out of 100 on

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

and a 92% rating on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Sicario, Room 164, The 2010 films Films about Mexican drug cartels Films directed by Gianfranco Rosi 2010 documentary films Documentary films about the illegal drug trade Documentary films about criminals Ciudad Juárez Documentary films about Mexico 2010s Mexican films