One of the most riveting films of the 21st century, Sicario presents an intense and brutal examination of the war on drugs. With a solid ensemble and thrilling set pieces, this film will stay with you for a good while after your first viewing.
Following a deadly raid on a cartel house in Arizona led by young, idealistic FBI agent Kate Macer, Kate is offered a part in a CIA task force to bring down a major Mexican Cartel Boss. What follows is a sequence of events that sees Kate's idealism shattered as she finds herself unprepared for this brutal war.
Sicario is written by Taylor Sheridan and directed by Denis Villeneuve. You can see their distinct styles at work throughout the film. Sheridan has always had a unique neo-western vibe to the settings he focuses on. From films like Hell or High Water and Wind River, as well as the popular TV series Yellowstone, Sheridan shines a light on areas and people that are often misrepresented in Hollywood. In this case, Sheridan brilliantly showcases the complexities of the drug war centered at the US-Mexico border, and how it can't be viewed in a simple black-and-white way. Director Denis Villeneuve is a master of scope and building tension. This is best showcased in scenes when they first cross into Juarez. You can feel the presence of the drug trade on every block, and the overhead shot over the highway border toll with many cars coming out but few going in. Then you have one of the most intense sequences you'll ever see in a movie, in the ambush on the border, with a time bomb-like buildup and brutal fallout achieved through great use of editing, camera work, and score. The movie is filled with other sequences like this throughout the runtime, and Villeneuve's execution of each of these scenes is masterclass filmmaking.
The three central performances from Emily Blunt, Benicio Del Toro, and Josh Brolin all work brilliantly to convey the various aspects of the film. Blunt embodies Kate perfectly with a strong sense of duty; she is naive, but not incompetent, which Blunt does a great job of portraying. As the film progresses, her mental state deteriorates as she witnesses the various atrocities and actions taken on both sides. By the end, she realizes that she, as a by-the-books individual, can't justifiably operate in a land as lawless as this one. As she is told at the end, "You will not survive here, you're not a wolf, and this is a land of wolves now". Josh Brolin as the seasoned and sarcastic Matt Graver provides some nice humor and wit, even in harsh and dangerous situations. We can tell that Matt has been doing this for a while, so a cynical sense of humor makes sense given what he has seen. Unlike the optimistic Kate, Matt has been in the game long enough to know the harsh truths of this world, and it all comes around in the pivotal scene where he confronts the true reasons behind their mission to Kate. The performance that most people take away from this is Benicio Del Toro as Alejandro Gillick. Del Toro masterfully captures the mysterious aura this character brings to the screen. For most of the runtime, he has a quiet intensity about himself that is just waiting to be unleashed, and in the climax, it is. The final act of this film belongs to Del Toro as if he is this uncaged beast finally allowed to roam free; it's one of Del Toro's career highlights.
Sicario also makes a point of examining the hopelessness and human cost of this tragic war. Throughout the film, we see these scenes of a Mexican police officer with his wife and son. We can see through these sequences that he clearly cares deeply for his family, and it's this trait that makes his reveal of working for the cartel at the end more tragic. It's easy to see this man as a bad guy, but looking at the greater context, does he really have a choice, especially with a wife and kid at home? The characters we've been following are not an exception to this. Matt reveals to Kate that the true purpose of this mission is to take out one drug lord to insert control for another, one that they can more easily control. As Matt says, "Until somebody finds a way to convince 20 percent to stop snorting and smoking that shit, order is the best we can hope for". This all comes full circle when Alejandro confronts the drug lord with his family. It's revealed that this man had Alejandro's wife and daughter killed, meaning this is all simply revenge for Alejandro. Before Alejandro kills him, he asks him, "Do you believe the men you work for are any different? Who do you think you learned it from?" Alejandro goes the extra mile, killing not just him, but his wife and 2 sons, as well as killing the previously mentioned police officer. What we are left with is not victory by any means, but instead a boy who no longer has a father, and two more boys killed because of a life they didn't even choose. The final sequence of the deceased officer's son's soccer game being interrupted by the sound of gunfire, only to keep playing mere seconds later, serves as a powerful note to end on.
Sicario is one of those films where the master craftsmanship is on display in nearly every frame. The finished product is a testament to their skills in making one of the highlights of film in the 2010s.
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