Sicario is the latest movie to entice audiences to visit Mexico by highlighting all the drug trafficking, people smuggling, cartel-killings and dismembered bodies strung out for the locals and tourist to see. Besides the highly positive representation of Mexico one thing you can’t deny is that Sicario is one of the most bad-ass movies of the year.
With a stellar cast and some brutal concepts we find FBI agent, Emily Blunt, being brought in to assist with an elite government task force that are trying to squeeze out the last few avenues available to the murderous drug-cartels across the border. It's a quality film that packs a lot into its 2 hour running time, however this has real potential to be a six to ten part TV series that could really flesh out some more of the elements that make this film so great.
The film is structured really well with some really eerie landscape cinematography that shows Mexico in a way like never before. There’s birds eye views of Mexico looks like twisted contorted body more than sparse desert landscapes. On top of this the camera also serves as Emily Blunt's eyes often teasing out information about locations, character traits and character reveals. There some interesting choices with framing where sometimes intense conversations are shot at an extreme distance in order to just show the distress of the whole body as opposed to just the face.
Much like the brilliant but little seen Arnold Schwarzenegger film Sabotage, Sicario pays close attention to the procedural aspects of large scale tactical operations. The film works hard and works well with regards to bring you into the thick of the action without always having to resort to a first person shooter, sure they do do this at times but only to ratchet up the tension as opposed to "just because it looks cool." There's a grittiness and realism to the crimes in Mexico that it makes you wonder just how brutal the actions of the real-life cartel might be in reality.
The casting around Emily Blunt is really impressive. There’s some really weathered actors bringing some intimidating performances. From Josh Brolin’s head of the elite task force to Benicio Del Toro’s enigmatic consultant just bringing body bags in spades, you have a whole series of supporting cast that look like they’ve walked straight out of the actual cartel, or straight out the back of a people smuggling truck or straight the nastiest army regiment they could find. Plus we throw in the new Punisher Jon Bernthal for good measure. All this just adds to the realism and the blood, sweat and tears of the film’s surroundings.
There's a sudden and dramatic change in protagonist briefly towards the end of the film which reinforces the reason for this film to be a ten part series. It is a little jarring and does diminish Blunt's character in many ways, but as Josh Brolin's character continually reminds us, she is just one piece of a much larger story.The ending itself is quite bleak and in some ways reminiscent of No Country For Old Men, this ultimately serves as a reminder that despite all the horrible things in this world, life continues to move on.
Overall, Sicario is definitely a film you should make time for. Granted I still feel that the movie had the potential to be better served as a TV series, but I’m certainly not going to hold that against it when it’s this good.
Sicario gets Four and a Half Stars out of Five (or Four and Half out of Five reasons to not f*ck with the cartel)
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