Review of Sicario (2015) by Kevin D — 23 Apr 2016

I've been waiting with anticipation for this film for about a year, and let me be honest, it did not disappoint! Sicario, is Canadian director Denis Villneuve's return to storytelling at his absolute best.

The film takes place in the south of the United States, and Mexico, as FBI agent Kate Macer (Emily Blunt) joins a team of military personnel to cross into the Mexican border town of Juarez, in order to bring down some of the biggest criminals in the Cartels. Benicio Del Toro plays a former Colombian lawyer Alejandro and Josh Brolin joins as CIA spook Matt Graver. I enjoyed watching their characters interact with each-other and particularly found Emily Blunt a sensitive yet determined agent, despite her lack of physical prowess. Well acted all the way through.

What really makes the film a pleasure to watch is how well the story it told through the cinematography and direction of some of the best in Hollywood. In my opinion, Villneuve's Best; 'Prisoners' (2013) was a much more personal story. He takes on a much larger and hugely difficult topic on how the U.S approaches, and deals with the violent drug cartels pushing mostly cocaine and heroin across the U.S/Mexico border. He manages to approach the subject objectively, even though we may not understand the depth of such a difficult problem. I thought the director's style wasn't his usual approach to film making, yet it still has just enough grit and depth of story to make it interesting.

Well acted, and very well told. In my opinion this puts Villneuve in the top echelon of cinema direction.

4/5.