SICARIO
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Genre: Crime Drama/Thriller
Starring: Benicio del Toro, Josh Brolin, Emily Blunt, Victor Garber
Distributed by: Lionsgate
Release Date: September 18, 2015 (Limited), October 2 (Wide)
My Rating: 9.5/10
From French-Canadian director Denis Villeneuve (Incendies, Prisoners) comes a bloody, gut-wrenching crime thriller that surely makes the list of my favorite films of this year, and which will hopefully become an Oscar contender.
The title of the film derives from the Spanish word for 'hitman,' a term frequently used in Mexico to describe any type of hired assassin. The film opens up with an explanation of the original meaning of the word Sicario, which dates back to the times of the Ancient Romans, and referred to the zealots of Jerusalem who would give the hunting game to the Romans who had invaded their land. The story centers around Kate Macer (Blunt), an idealistic FBI Special Weapons and Tactics Team agent who is tasked with assisting CIA agent and DOJ adviser Matt Graver (Brolin) and his dubious partner Alejandro (del Toro), who was previously stationed in Colombia, with a mission. This mission consists in bringing down a drug cartel leader named Manuel Diaz, who leads them in turn to an even bigger drug lord named Fausto Alarcon. As the investigation across the U.S.-Mexican border escalates, Kate begins to question the morality of the means being employed, and suspects there may be a double-agent in their midst.
The film is brilliantly shot and laden with gruesome images from the very beginning. I would not be surprised if I learned that some of the photos of decimated and mutilated bodies were completely real. Although the film is rather slow at the start, (after the opening action scene) the magnitude of the mission escalates, as well as the tension between the US government officials, and the body count rises rapidly in the second half of the film. Coupled with an eerie and heart-pounding score by Icelandic composer Johann Johannsson, (Prisoners, The Theory of Everything) low-key lighting, and first-person-shooter-video-game-esque green lights as seen through special high-tech CIA goggles as the squad travels through tunnels in Mexico searching for the drug lords, Sicario truly makes for a macabre, contemporary thriller.
Emily Blunt delivers a commanding performance as a brave, badass, take-no-nonsense government agent despite her supremely feminine appearance. Her emotions take a constant turn from suspicion, to terror, to pure anger as she cruises back-and-forth across the border donning nothing but a plain dark tshirt, pants, boots, a bullet-proof vest, and a simple handgun, as well as the occasional cigarette to relax the nerves (or to fit in better with the men?). Josh Brolin is brilliant as the obligatory sarcastic knucklehead team leader whose morals seem questionable from the get-go.
Benicio del Toro is phenomenal as a frightening, yet cool-under-dire-situations man who has suffered personal loss and is just as tenacious as Miss Blunt's character to seek justice, albeit for a different problem and by different tactics. Mr. del Toro, a native Puerto Rican, seamlessly alternates between English and Spanish, and squints his small eyes as he issues threats in a gruff tone. One of the many aspects of the film that undoubtedly made chills run down my spine was hearing del Toro deliver some of his lines before beating or killing a stuck-up yet not-so-smart drug-pusher. The coldest one: "Ahora vas a saber lo que es conocer a Dios en tierra Yanqui." ("Now you will know what it's like to meet God in Yankee territory").
The film ends on a horrifying note, shedding nothing close to a ray of hopeful light with regards to the increasingly precarious cross-border war on drugs. The plot twist towards the end of the film demonstrates that there are clearly more than simply two sides to this issue. Who knows when the dispute will finally end, but one thing is certain after seeing Sicario: in Juarez, Mexico, anything goes, and only those with the nerve to take risks and play dirty will survive.
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