Review

Sicario

Idealistic FBI agent Kate Macer (Emily Blunt) joins a task force to fight Mexican narcos in Denis Villeneuve’s Sicario.
Idealistic FBI agent Kate Macer (Emily Blunt) joins a task force to fight Mexican narcos in Denis Villeneuve’s Sicario.

With Sicario, Canadian director Denis Villeneuve (Prisoners, Enemy) eloquently offers the same message that Mr. Mackey tried in vain to convey in South Park. That is, "Drugs are bad. Mmmmkay."

It's a familiar and potentially banal thing to say, but Villeneuve and freshman screenwriter and veteran actor Taylor Sheridan find seemingly endless ways of reminding us that illicit chemicals and the war to combat them lead to no good.

Sicario

88 Cast: Emily Blunt, Benicio Del Toro, Josh Brolin, Jon Bernthal, Jeffrey Donovan, Victor Garber, Daniel Kaluuya, Maximiliano Hernández, Bernardo P. Saracino

Director: Denis Villeneuve

Rating: R, for strong violence, grisly images, and language

Running time: 121 minutes

It probably doesn't hurt that Villeneuve has a wide variety of subtle and sometimes spectacular ways of telling a story visually. Having ace cinematographer Roger Deakins (Skyfall) as a collaborator certainly doesn't hurt.

Sheridan resists a formidable temptation that often comes to actors who take up writing. His dialogue is remarkably sparse, but he still manages to create intriguing and sometimes mesmerizingly troubled characters who seem believable even if the action can get so frenzied it almost defies reason.

Sicario, Mexican slang for "hitman," concerns a frustrated FBI agent named Kate Macer (Emily Blunt), whose latest raid has revealed a chamber of horrors. While Kate is a stickler for procedure (it's easier to get a conviction that way), she's eager to stop the drug lord responsible before he litters Arizona with similarly gruesome mausoleums.

Sensing her eagerness to do more than file paperwork when raids end in fatalities, Kate's boss, Dave Jennings (Victor Garber), introduces her to two odd men who think her investigations may not be in vain after all. The first is Matt Graver (Josh Brolin), who seems so laid back, it's hard to believe him when he says he works for the Department of Defense. The only trait that seems to give him away is the casual way he talks about lethal and possibly illegal activities.

Joining him is a fellow known only as Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro). He has a nervous, brooding quality. He rarely speaks, but when he does he's relaying information that's essential for staying alive.

It doesn't take long for Kate to question the enterprise the three of them are engaged in. She notices laws being broken every time she blinks, but the prospect of stopping gangsters who kill with impunity is difficult to resist.

Nonetheless, Kate is bothered by the fact that neither Matt nor Alejandro seem to be working for any recognizable government agency. If something goes wrong, how does one complain about "oh, that guy in the flip-flops?" Alejandro, despite his often sympathetic tone, doesn't seem to be answering to D.C. or any government or private concern.

At times, it's tempting to wonder if Villeneuve knows how to stage a routine-looking shot. This is not a complaint. It's refreshing to see a mainstream movie where the filmmaker doesn't feel the need to carpet-bomb a viewer with exposition to get a point across. That said, Villeneuve handles action and suspense with a flair that few independent filmmakers have.

Villeneuve is attracted to stories where the line between good and evil is fluid, and thankfully he has a cast strong enough to make those shifts convincing. Blunt, for example, can enter into a suspicious situation without coming off as gullible or naive. Similarly, Del Toro has a rare knack for making shady characters downright likable. He can convey volumes of information about a character through a single shrug and never raise his voice, because he doesn't have to. A simple stare from him is more menacing than most of the tirades his peers deliver.

In the end, Sicario doesn't bring much that's new to the debate on the subject of narcotics trafficking and the effort to stop it. But it does seem to indicate that getting one's hands dirty does little to make the rest of the world clean.

MovieStyle on 10/02/2015

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