SICARIO (7.5 out of 10) Directed by Denis Villeneuve; Written by Taylor Sheridan; Starring Emily Blunt, Josh Brolin, Benicio Del Toro, Daniel Kaluuya, Victor Garber, Jon Bernthal, Jeffrey Donovan, Raoul Trujillo, Julio Cedillo, Bernardo P. Saracino, Maximiliano Hernández; Running time: 121 minutes. Rated R for “strong violence, grisly images, and language.” In limited release September 18, 2015, expanding wide October 2.
Take eveything you think you know about the drug trade, cartel violence, every harrowing story you’ve heard of kidnappings and gruesome murders in places like Juarez, Nuevo Laredo, and countless other border towns. And it’s 100 times worse.
“Sicario” puts you in the middle of all of it, every uncomfortable, tense, violent, hopeless second. With cinematography that attempts to mimic a first person view of a lot of the most intense situations, from escorting a prisoner transfer convoy to a raid on a suspected drug tunnel, you feel the tension, witness the casual way violence is dealt out, as though it was completely commonplace. And you leave the theater feeling tense, hopeless, and depressed.
In this way, it is almost the exact opposite of the other two high-tension films opening this weekend, “The Martian” and “The Walk.” In those films we have people attempting to defy the odds, survive, and show great heroism in achieving what others have never done before. You believe in mankind’s goodness and ability to do amazing things. In “Sicario,” you just feel awful about the state of humanity.
Our story begins with rookie FBI agent Kate Macer (Emily Blunt) and her partner Reggie Wayne (Daniel Kaluuya) raiding a suspected drug house in suburban Phoenix. Not finding any drugs, they instead happen upon an even worse reality: nearly a hundred dead bodies. . . and something happens that escalates the situation even more. (no spoilers)
In swaggers Matt Graver (Josh Brolin) who won’t say exactly who he works for other than he’s a “DOD [Department of Defense] contractor.” He’s putting together an inter-agency task force including some hardcore Delta Force soldiers to try to “cause chaos” and “push back” after the horrors just discovered on US soil.
Their target? Manny Diaz, who owned the house of horrors through various shell corporations and with massive legitimate business interests. Also? A high-ranking member of the Sonoran cartel.
To get to him, they enlist the aid of Alejandro Gillick (Benecio del Toro), who has a hidden history with the cartel and specifically with Diaz’s boss, Fausto Alarcon, the real target of their operations. Alarcon is a ghost, and to find him, they have to cause enough chaos to get him to show his face, or get Diaz to lead them to him.
Their operation starts with springing a high value target from a Juarez prison, and stuff gets real. Very quickly. We see nude and beheaded and mutilated corpses hanging from the bridges as warnings from the cartels. The motorcade drives by dozens of posters of missing people. And then as they try to re-cross the border back to El Paso and the cartel makes their move? Well, just watch, but the final summation from one of the team was “You’ll read about this in every paper in America tomorrow.” To which Josh Brolin wisely replies, “This won’t even make the papers in El Paso.”
The violence is both casual and horrific. We follow along with Kate, who literally asks several times “What is going on here?!?”
And this is all in the first act. The rabbit hole goes deeper and deeper, and we follow Kate to plumb the depths that humanity will stoop to. . . and all over drugs.
All of this is masterfully woven together by director Denis Villenueve, His last film “Prisoners” is one of the most suspenseful films of the last decade. “Sicario” will similarly have you biting your nails, but he exchanges the minimalism and psychological tension of “Prisoners” for a more straightforward suspense punctuated by intense action sequences.
In fact, the horror of “Sicario” is how it sticks with you once you’ve left the theater, left to ponder the bleakness of the drug war. For people looking for a cut-and-dried political message here, you won’t find it. Nativists and conservatives will call even louder for higher walls and militarizing the border. Libertarians and liberals will decry the hopelessness of the drug war, some calling for legalization or decriminalization. But neither approach is really backed up by the royally messed up realpolitik the film sets up. Just as “Apocalypse Now,” “Full Metal Jacket” and “Platoon” revealed the futility and horrors of Vietnam and war in general, so too does “Sicario.”
Beyond Villenueve’s directing, the real star here is Benecio Del Toro. Is it too early to start talking Best Supporting Actor Oscars? If it isn’t, I’m making a prediction here. He’s a cipher the entire first two acts of the film. He fades into the background, only coming out when he is needed, and then back into the shadows. But then suddenly he becomes the entire film and you see the opportunity he’s been waiting for.
“You can finish your meal.” These words may become the coldest, baddest words spoken by a movie character since Christoph Waltz asked for some milk in “Inglorious Basterds.”
As much tension as this builds up, it doesn’t lead to a satisfying conclusion. No lessons imparted, no great truth revealed. Except perhaps that humanity is awful. We’re all just awful. And we face impossible choices and impossible situations of our own creating.
Bring heart medication for during the film and anti-depressants for afterwards.
7.5 out of 10