Sicario (Denis Villeneuve, 2015)

8/10
It is hard not to be slightly disappointed at the end of Sicario, but this is clearly not a movie designed to send audiences home happy, so I'll try not to hold that against it. It's so unrelentingly bleak and so devoid of any kind of comeuppance you'll say "well that's the point", but it doesn't exactly make for a fun film-watching experience. It almost feels like there should be an extra half-hour tacked on to tie up loose ends. But, of course, that's not how real life works. Sometimes we have to swallow the ugly truths presented to us and we don't ever get closure.
Nevertheless, it's extremely well done and well-plotted. Benicio del Toro is great, and Josh Brolin plays his part so well it's hard to stop hating him when the movie's over. A Rotten Tomatoes review commented that they felt Emily Blunt was miscast, because she so often looks like the smartest person in the room, and in this movie, she so rarely ever is. That's a pretty on-point complaint, and the movie does kind of stretch the bounds of believability with her character.
That aside, everything else was top-notch, and a particular set piece involving a tunnel near the end of the film is eye-popping in how well it's crafted and how tense it is.

Prisoners (Denis Villeneuve, 2013)

8/10
I thought it was really good. I put it on at midnight thinking I'd probably fall asleep watching it and I ended up staying up until 2:30am to see the whole thing play out. The kind of movie that grabs you from the first second. I didn't love the way the mystery ended up playing out but it was still satisfactory to me. Really liked the cinematography, Gyllenhaal and Jackman were both great, and the plot was twisty enough without being convoluted or predictable (although a little unbelievable at times).

Enemy (Denis Villeneuve, 2013)

7/10
I really have no idea what to make of this one. I enjoyed it a lot while watching it, and the ending caught me completely off-guard as I suspect it did to most everyone who watched it. I find myself impressed by its brazenness despite being frustrated with it. I unashamedly looked up the movie on Wikipedia right after it ended to see just what the hell happened and I'm not really a whole lot clearer (and I'm not sure I like the explanation) but I remain intrigued.
Jake Gyllenhaal gives a really good performance in the dual role. Despite the identical appearance of both characters the mannerisms, body language and speech Gyllenhaal uses for each really sets them apart. I really liked the mood of the film too - the score is suitably creepy and paranoid and the way the whole movie is awash in this sickly, pallid yellow does a lot for the atmosphere.
As for That Ending, well...I really like movies that pull the bait-and-switch, when you think it's about one thing but it's really about another. I can understand people feeling frustrated or cheated but I like having my expectations subverted. I don't know how much I loved Denis Villeneuve's subversion in this instance but I certainly admire it. Roger Moore, in a less-than-favorable review, says the movie is "essentially a frustrating puzzle without a solution". Which may be true, there may be no solution in the end (or no satisfying one). But the solving process, however futile, is fun and engrossing. The movie is short enough to not overstay its welcome and makes appealing the idea of revisiting it to see if things make more sense on a second go-around. I might do that sooner rather than later. For now this will be a hard one to forget.

Incendies (Denis Villeneuve, 2010)

10/10
Simply put one of the best movies of the year, and an absolute crime if it doesn't get greater attention outside Canada. The story: the mother of twin twentysomethings Jeanne and Simon dies, and leaves behind a will stipulating the two deliver a letter each to their other brother and their father. The caveat being that the twins had no idea they had a brother and have never met their father.
Two journeys are told at once - Jeanne (and later with Simon)'s attempts to track down her long lost family in her mother's native country (fictional but a stand-in for Lebanon, it seems), and in flashback, the tribulations their mother went through in this same country years before.
There are plenty of twists revealed to the audience before the characters, which is a clever and disarming tactic because the wallop of an ending hits like a freight train when it's revealed to all. My only minor gripe is that director Denis Villeneuve sometimes shows a lack of faith in his audience, over-exposing things with unnecessary after-the-fact voiceovers. And the plot, while magnificently constructed, requires a certain suspension of disbelief to imagine all these events occuring the way they do.
But that doesn't take away from the enjoyment of the movie itself which is gripping, harrowing, and tragic in every sense of the word. Go see it.