Sicario (2015) is directed by Denis Villeneuve and stars Emily Blunt, Benicio Del Toro, Josh Brolin, Daniel Kaluuya, Maximiliano Hernandez, Victor Garber, Jon Bernthal, and Julio Cesar Cedillo. The film follows a by-the-book FBI agent, Kate (Blunt) as she is recruited into a specialized government task force. The task force’s goal is to create chaos between drug cartels by crossing the border and carrying out specific, less-than-legal operations. Led by Matt (Brolin), the task force’s actions slowly begin to blend the line between legal and illegal, moral and immoral. When the team is accompanied by a mysterious cartel specialist, Alejandro (Del Toro), Kate begins to suspect that there may be something bigger going on. Kate is forced to come to terms with the operation’s twisted morals and hopefully make it out alive. 

The leads here are absolutely magnetic. Kate is a very interesting and atypical character but is all the more effective because of it. She is the only female on the task force and is clearly out of her element. The thing is, she’s not out of her element because she’s a woman. She’s out of her element because of her strong moral compass. She’s constantly taken advantage of, left in the dark, and used as a pawn. A person could be annoyed with this character because of her lack of action/knowledge, but that’s kind of the point. She’s not this way because she’s weak or less capable, she’s a fish out of water who is constantly being lied to. Her situation has more to do with her clashing morals and not something as surface-level as gender. Blunt plays the character with a level of subtle complexity that is impressive. Her character is built through actions and reactions, not dialogue. This is the superior way to build a character. 

Benicio Del Toro does some of his best work here. The character doesn’t talk much and is likewise built through actions/reactions. He is calm, but when the moment is right, he transforms into a terrifying killing machine. What is impressive is how compelling the character remains even when we know nothing about him. He’s likable even though we don’t trust him whatsoever. He’s able to show so much pain on his face that we almost don’t care about his morals. Our feelings constantly clash with the objective information. We know we should be uneasy, but we like him anyway. 

As for Josh Brolin, he is the weakest of the three leads, but still strong. Only weak in comparison. He plays your typical strong, but cool and collected team leader. This is a very serious film, but Brolin succeeds at providing a small amount of humor. That being said, this isn’t at the expense of the character’s more dramatic moments. In a moment of revelation in the back half of the film, Brolin floored me. Something devastating is revealed, and Brolin’s delivery left me breathless. 

Even with these top-notch performances, the real standout is director Denis Villeneuve. He’s able to take what would otherwise be a straightforward crime/cop film and inject it with a high level of artistic/thematic depth. In the hands of a lesser director, I feel that this would be closer to straight-to-DVD quality. His use of tension and the ability to keep us compelled even though the tone is so cold is a wonder. Usually, when the tone/characters are this serious, I feel a bit detached. The thing is, these characters aren’t cold, they’re real. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference. The subject matter feels worthy of all the seriousness and I understand why there’s not a lot of room for larger-than-life personalities.

The cinematography is top notch and the music is unsettling in the best ways. The pacing here is also extremely effective. There are these unbearably intense sequences that are completely earned, but between them is a lot of dead time. Fortunately, the downtime is perfectly used to build up to the more intense sequences. It makes the intense moments unpredictable and exhilarating. The whole film leads to a climax that is unorthodox, but wholly satisfying. Not to mention, the entire film works as an effective scathing of the US’s war on drugs. It’s just one big cycle of violence that grows larger over time.

Overall, this is an extremely effective film that really only stumbles in ways that are so small that they’re not even worth mentioning. This is a different kind of thriller, a mature one. It doesn’t make the mistake of answering questions. Instead, it raises them. The morality of the story is up for you to interpret. And whatever interpretation a person lands on is equally strong. If you like intense, gritty, and intelligent crime thrillers, it’s tough to find a modern option as irresistible as Sicario. A-