“This is the Land of Wolves.”
Directed by: Denis Villeneuve
Written by: Taylor Sheridan
Starring: Emily Blunt, Benicio Del Toro, Josh Brolin, Daniel Kaluuya, Victor Garber, Jon Bernthal
The H-Bomb: After leading a bloody raid on a cartel house that left two fellow agents dead, FBI up-and-comer Kate Macer (Emily Blunt) joins an elite task force headed by DOD liaison Matt Graver (Josh Brolin) to take on the cartel in El Paso, Texas. Upon arriving in old El Paso, Macer finds that the other members of this task force include a bunch of big, bearded Special Forces types, as well as Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro), a mysterio who’s dressed in a suit, speaks with an accent, and, as he puts it, goes wherever he is sent.
Soon, the rookie on the team finds herself riding as part of a black SUV convoy headed down into Juarez, Mexico, where the cartels rule the streets, and where neither the FBI, the DOD, or any US government agency has jurisdiction. Their objective, to pick up a local kingpin and bring him back across the border for a friendly little chat… a friendly little chat involving some advanced interrogation techniques. From there, Agent Macer descends deeper and deeper into the murky world of government spookery, and the kind of role it’s really playing in the War on Drugs.
After seeing director Denis Villeneuve’s 2013 thriller, Prisoners, I never imagined he would make another film as dark and unsettling as that one. Well, here it is. With Sicario (Spanish for Hit Man), Villeneuve and screenwriter Taylor Sheridan take a deep, brooding look into this grimy world where a man’s life isn’t worth spit, good guys and bad guys are virtually indistinguishable, and the best hope for humanity is the nuclear bomb.
The picture that Villeneuve paints is bleak as all hell and utterly gripping. I stated in my review of his previous film that he is very adept at creating an atmosphere of intense unease, and in Sicario, he ratchets up that tension to about eleven. He makes sitting in traffic at a border crossing seem like the most stressful and dangerous thing in the world. And that’s not even touching on the strained relationship he creates between Macer and the other members of the task force, which grows more paranoid and mistrustful by the minute. Then there’s the Zero Dark Thirty-style night siege at the film’s climax, which is twenty minutes of sheer, sweaty-palmed, shit-your-pants intensity.
Villeneuve has a talent for building suspense that rivals that of Alfred Hitchcock, words I do not utter lightly. Using Joe Walker’s tight editing, Roger Deakins’ gritty-yet-gorgeous cinematography, and Johann Johannsson’s dread inducing score, he constructs each set piece with such precision, such skill, that he puts us right smack in Macer’s shoes. As she takes that ride through the mean streets of Juarez, she is in way over her head, she knows it, and she’s completely terrified… and we are made to feel her fear.
Initially, when I saw Blunt’s name next to Brolin’s and Del Toro’s, I had my doubts. While I have liked her in the past, I wasn’t convinced that she could hold her own between those two heavyweights. I’m pleased to admit I was very, very wrong. Macer isn’t just the protagonist, she is the film’s moral center. She is constantly fighting to stay above the chaos and violence, to keep her ideals, in spite of all the bullshit swirling around her. It’s a challenging role that Blunt nails, with just the right balance of fear, naivete, and strength.
Donning a pair of flip-flops and a creeper goatee, Brolin brings to Graver the kind of slimy charm that makes me kind of like the guy, despite the fact that he is a shady, shifty, and downright scummy motherfucker. Whenever he opened his mouth to speak, I couldn’t help but smile. The one who steals the show, however, is Del Toro. Yes, another Mexican cartel movie with Benicio Del Toro, except this time, he isn’t the dogged cop he was in Traffic, nor is he the psychotic enforcer he was in Savages. This time, he’s a dark, silent type, shrouded in mystery. A man capable of being inhumanly ruthless, yet whose motives, when finally revealed, are all too human. He’s undeniably scary, and at the same time, oddly sympathetic. Del Toro is simply fantastic, this is his best work since 21 Grams.
Between the cinematic double whammy that was Prisoners and Enemy, I had a feeling that I’d witnessed the arrival of a great new talent with Denis Villeneuve. Sicario has more than confirmed that feeling. This is not your average Friday night escapism, not in the slightest. This is a raw, complex, bullet-to-the-ballsack thriller that will have you completely captivated as you watch it, and leave you genuinely rattled once it’s over.
