Sicario ★★★★½
DENIS Villeneuve is one of the best visual directors working in film today.
His last three achievements have all been in the sci-fi genre – Dune Part One, Arrival and Blade Runner 2049.
Early in his career he concentrated on dramas, like the astounding Incendies, but it was the thriller Sicario that brought him to widespread attention in 2015.
Apart from being an incredibly tense and intelligent film, it is also visually amazing.
Deneuve worked with renowned Australian cinematographer Roger Deakins to create stunning vistas of the border country between Mexico and the United States.
Rarely in a thriller do the characters and action appear intrinsically linked and almost influenced by the setting within which they exist.
Combined with a powerful soundtrack by Johann Johannsson, the trio create fresh, deceptively simple action set pieces fully enhanced by the extended period of tension that precedes them.
Taylor Sheridan’s script provides three strongly written characters for the lead actors to make their marks and Emily Blunt, Josh Brolin and Benecio Del Toro all successfully seize the opportunities. There are also early smaller parts for Jon Bernthal and Daniel Kaluuya.
Sicario is the ultimate film depiction of the dirty fight between government and drug cartels.
Blunt plays an FBI agent who agrees to take a secondment into a special team led by the laconic but secretive character played by Brolin.
The team also includes a mysterious South American advisor played by Del Toro.
As they move deeper into the mire run by the cartels, Blunt begins to have second thoughts about the tactics being employed.
The film features several meticulously staged action sequences, the stand-out being the lead-up to and execution of a confrontation between the two forces in a vehicle hold-up at the formal border crossing.
The infiltration of a tunnel at the film’s climax is masterful while the denouement at a drug dealer’s family dinner featuring Del Toro’s character is a shocking yet fitting end.
As Brolin’s character says: “You’re worried about operating out of bounds? You’re not – the boundary has changed.”
A strong sequel, Sicario: Day of the Soldado, was released in 2018 and a third entry, titled Sicario: Capos, is in development.