The Guardian

Mark Kermode's film of the week

Sicario review Emily Blunts star quality lifts Mexican drugs thriller
4 / 5 stars
A great performance from Blunt makes this well-staged story of FBI operations in
the murky world of the US-Mexico borderlands a cut above the ordinary
Victor Garber and Emily Blunt lead the way in Sicario.
Emily Blunt as FBI agent Kate Macer leads the way, carefully balancing her
performance between defiance and vulnerability in Denis Villeneuves Sicario.
Photograph: Allstar
Mark Kermode Observer film critic
Sunday 11 October 2015 08.00 BST Last modified on Wednesday 14 October 2015
10.19 BST
The blurred lines of Americas inglorious war with Mexicos cross-border drug cartels
are in danger of becoming a modern cinema cliche. While Steven Soderberghs turnof-the-century Traffic ventured into comparatively unmapped territory, we now live
in a post-Breaking Bad world in which Nietzschean borderlands tourism is a kind of
popular cultural chic. Among the contenders for next years best documentary
Oscar is Matthew Heinemans brilliantly dramatic Cartel Land, an engrossing
investigation of anti-drug vigilante groups, which gives most fictional features a run
for their money. Meanwhile, dramas such as Amat Escalantes 2013 Heli have
focused on the impoverished Mexicans (the real victims of the drug war) for whom
unspeakable violence and corruption are a horrifyingly domestic mundanity.
Into this already over-ploughed field comes French-Canadian director Denis
Villeneuves Sicario, another twisted tale of intertwined law enforcement and drugsupply agencies, which also shares with Heli a talismanic display of mutilated bodies
hanging from bridges a cartel calling card. Emily Blunt is idealistic FBI agent Kate
Macer, recruited for a black-ops border mission after ram-raiding a veritable house
of horrors near Phoenix, Arizona. Kates new boss is special agent Matt Graver,
played with laconic menace by Josh Brolin, who wins the award for this years most

ironic wearer of flip-flops. But its the twitchy Alejandro (Benicio del Toro) who is the
real centre of attention a former prosecutor and a loose cannon whose trembling
nightmares embody the narratives anxious heart of darkness. Although mission
objectives remain resolutely oblique, Alejandro insists that bringing cartel kingpin
Mauel Diaz (Bernardo P Saracino) to justice would be like finding a vaccine for
the escalating horrors, a pointed medical analogy with overtones of protectionthrough-infection which are anything but accidental.
Based on a sharp (if derivative) script by Sons of Anarchys Taylor Sheridan, Sicario
uses private planes, public roads and clandestine tunnels to slip back and forth
across borders both moral and geographical. The enigmatic title means hitman
but there is more than one killer in this familiar moral maze, not to mention a
befuddling confusion of targets. This, of course, is catnip to Incendies director
Villeneuve who has returned obsessively to the theme of duality throughout his
career, most recently via the moral mazes of Prisoners and the doppelgangers of
Enemy. Yet what makes this more than just a retreading of old ground is the expertly
choreographed panache of the films set pieces, the visceral nature of which lifts the
unfolding action out of the ordinary.
While Sicario may be guilty of exoticising the murder capital reputation of Jurez
and its environs, it does so in a way that is horribly efficient, exploiting our anxieties
and expectations with cruel precision. Cinematographer Roger Deakins, for whom
this must surely secure a long overdue Academy Award, paints a land of brooding
twilight skies and unforgiving deserts, crime scenes revealed in wide shots with
unfashionably sparse edits, a recurrent motif of dust dancing in a shaft of light
adding a touch of hyperreality. A key confrontation on the Bridge of the Americas
border (painstakingly reconstructed by production designer Patrice Vermette)
provides a nail-biting highlight; its hard to remember the last time a traffic jam
rather than a car chase was this tense. Meanwhile, Jhann Jhannssons score is
all ominous rumbles and low growling honks, like Stygian ships hopelessly signalling
each other amid the indecipherable fog of war. By comparison, Hans Zimmers work
on Inception sounds upbeat.
And then there are the performances. While Del Toro may have the most eyecatching role as the films central riddle, and Brolin has fun with his slippery spook
shtick, Blunt arguably has the harder task as the fish-out-of-water FBI stooge who
must walk the thin line between audience cipher and active agent. Having earned
her combat spurs on the underrated Edge of Tomorrow, Blunt keeps things on the
right side of reality as Sicarios most believable character, carefully balancing her
performance between defiance and vulnerability, physicality and emotion. Its a
tough act to get right but shes bang on target: from chugging beers and slugging
her superiors to worrying about the consequences of her actions and inactions, Kate
remains wholly credible. Her performance may prove too unshowy for awards
garlands, but audiences will appreciate her on-the-money honesty, and cling to her
character as the movies one and only moral touchstone.

Love Villeneuve's work, like Incendies and Prisoners I found Sicario genuinely
chilling -particularly with Jhann Jhannssons brilliant score - and very, very
intense. This is great cinema on every level - also great editing by Joe Walker who
has cut all of Steve McQueen's films. Am excited/relieved to hear Villeneuve will be
directing the remake of Blade Runner.