GET 35% OFF YOUR FIRST YEAR!

Limited time - use promo code: FALL35 at checkout

Live stream preview

Watch this video and more on OVID.tv

Watch this video and more on OVID.tv

Start your free trial

Already subscribed? Sign in

El Sicario, Room 164

True Crime • 1h 20m

Directed by Gianfranco Rosi and Charles Bowden • Documentary • 2011 • 84 minutes

The term sicario goes back to Roman Palestine, where a Jewish sect, the Sicarii, used concealed daggers (sicae) in their murders of Romans and their supporters. In modern language, a sicario is a professional killer or a hit man.

In an anonymous motel room on the U.S./Mexico border, a Ciudad Juarez hitman speaks. He has killed hundreds of people and is an expert in torture and kidnapping. He was simultaneously on the payroll of the Mexican drug cartels and a commander of the Chihuahua State Police. There is currently a $250,000 contract on his life and he lives as a fugitive, though he has never been charged with a crime in any country. With his face obscured by a black mesh hood, he tells his story to the camera inside the very motel room he once used to hold and torture kidnapped victims. Aided only by a magic marker and notepad, which he uses to illustrate and diagram his words, the sicario describes, in astounding detail, his life of crime, murder, abduction and torture.

Tags
americas, area studies, biography, charles bowden, ciudad juarez, crime, crime and criminals, criminal justice, criminals, criminology, cultural and ethnic studies, documentary, drug, drug dealers, drug trade, drugs, dvd, el sicario, expository, film, history, hit-man, hitman, icarus films, juarez, kidnapping, killers, latin american studies, latino and hispanic studies, law and legal studies, mexican, mexico, murder, narco trafficers, ovid, ovid_ca, psychology and mental health, room 164, s_0029, s_0057, s_0058, s_0172, s_0260, s_0370, s_0638, sicario, social psychology, the, title_defgh, title_e, torture, true crime, video, violence, world regions

Up Next in True Crime

  • South
    1:10:59
    South

    South

    Directed by Chantal Akerman • Documentary • 1999 • 70 minutes

    Inspired by her love of William Faulkner and James Baldwin, renowned director Chantal Akerman had planned to produce a meditation on the American South. However, just days before she was to begin filming, James Byrd, Jr. was murdered ...

  • Let the Fire Burn
    1:35:44
    Let the Fire Burn

    Let the Fire Burn

    Directed by Jason Osder • Documentary • 2013 • 95 minutes

    In the astonishingly gripping Let the Fire Burn, director Jason Osder has crafted that rarest of cinematic objects: a found-footage film that unfurls with the tension of a great thriller. On May 13, 1985, a longtime feud between the city ...

  • Latin Kings: A Street Gang Story
    1:15:17
    Latin Kings: A Street Gang Story

    Latin Kings: A Street Gang Story

    Directed by Jon Alpert • Documentary • 2003 • 75 minutes

    Assembled by DCTV co-founder, award-winning documentarian Jon Alpert, LATIN KINGS: A STREET GANG STORY follows the notorious New York gang's ex-leader, Antonio "King Tone" Fernandez. Under house arrest at the time of filming, Fernandez ins...

×