My generation has been fortunate enough not to have been subject to the harsh realities of world wars, (civil wars are of a different matter) however there is one kind of war which has somehow reached every home front all over the world and that is the war on drugs.
We may not be privy to what goes on in drug cartels, the disturbing deaths, the blatant corruption or the gravity of it’s destruction to lives but SICARIO takes us up close to the ongoing battle of the drug cartels and the struggle of different government agencies to have some semblance of control.
Directed by four time winner of the Canadian Screen Awards for Best Director, Dennis Villenueve and starring Golden Globe Winner Emily Blunt as FBI Agent Kate Mercer along with Academy Award Winner Benicio Del Toro and Academy Award Nominee Josh Brolin. SICARIO delivers more than strong performances from it’s power house cast. I for one have always seen Emily Blunt in movies but she has yet to make an impression on me but all that changed in SICARIO.
Blunt plays an idealistic FBI agent who is given the chance to catch the ‘big fish’ instead of just barely scratching the surface with raids when she is invited in an inter-agency task force with Josh Brolin and a mysterious ‘consultant’ Benicio Del Toro. Blunt’s Kate is kept in the dark for the mission and the audience follows her thoughts as to not really knowing what’s really going on. Which is a treat for me actually since it keeps you guessing and as everything falls into place you will he left in a state of surprise and shock and unfortunately for Kate it’s a little too late when that happens.
SICARIO which means ‘hitman’ in Mexico boasts of hauntingly beautiful overhead landscape shots as it takes you to a Mexican town where hanging mutilated corpses and a hailstorm of gunfire is the everyday norm. Director Villenueve also creates tense action sequences wherein you would feel as if you are part of the scene.
I loved that the film was morally ambiguous, if just to have a heated discussion after seeing it. In SICARIO, the movie explores what it means to battle a war where there no rules and where the “good guys” aren’t always good.
9/10 ⭐️
Regarded as the best opening Indie film in the U.S. for 2015, SICARIO is now showing in cinemas and is distributed by Pioneer Films.