Review of Sicario (2015) by Alice S — 11 Feb 2016

Brutal and suspenseful in its depiction of betrayal, street justice, and corruption, from the dirty underpasses of Ciudad Juarez to the lavish mansions of drug cartel kingpins. The whole, nausea-inducing sequence (in terms of both cinematography and graphic content) of the black SUV motorcade entering Mexico with Policia Jeep escorts, getting their man, then instigating a violent bloodbath right in the immigration lanes into the US, was the second-most anxious I felt at the movies this year (second to "Room"). Johann Johannsson's ominous, gut-sinking score - with its blend of classic strings and modern synths - is nominated for an Oscar, and rightfully so.

What nearly ruined the movie for me, though, is that while this is a story that needed to be told, the creators invented a paper-thin "tough woman" character to be the lens through which the story is told. Cold yet vulnerable Emily Blunt plays Kate Macer, a tough woman FBI agent chosen for special ops (why are tough ladycops always named Kate?), but despite her physical toughness, she acts as nothing more than a bland moral compass. Her idealism is hardly motivated at all. Is she haunted by a past case gone wrong? Does she have a backstory for joining the FBI? How did she get so respected in her field of kidnap response? The character is basically there as the audience proxy to question the shady dealings of Benecio Del Toro's Alejandro, who helps the team but for his own reasons.

Kate doesn't seem to have agency of her own. Her junior partner is the one to finally get the straight dope from her special ops handlers (and to make some derisive comments about her nonexistent hygiene and beauty routine, ostensibly to make her seem like "one of the guys," but just comes off as unnecessary patriarchal banter), and *SPOILERS* when she does get the gumption to pull a gun on Alejandro and deck Matt, it's like, "Why would she do that? What makes her so righteous yet foolhardy?" She fights back, but blindly. Although both Blunt and Del Toro are good in the scene in which Alejandro tenderly threatens her life unless she sanctions their sins in the name of the lesser evil and she pulls her gun on him AGAIN (really?!), Kate's brave resistance is really only written in for show.