Proof that IMDb ratings mean little

Rating: 2/10 (25 October 2015)

How this movie got a rating of 8.1 baffles me. The plot is idiotic, the filming is terrible, the characters are shallow, the acting is wooden, and the whole thing is predictable and boring, and it even tries to be routinely preachy near the end. A rating of 8 or more is rare on IMDb, so one would expect an outstanding show. This show is garbage. I seriously considered giving it a 1 instead of a 2 just to help offset the grossly misleading 8.1, but I decided in the end to give it the rating I thought it deserved, which is a 2 rather than a 1 because it does convey some idea of the violence of the Mexican drug wars and the viciousness of the drug lords.
The main character is Kate, an FBI agent who is good at what she does and so is recruited to join a special anti-drug unit. Kate is very idealistic, whereas the anti-drug unit does what it has to do. The point of the movie is to show the conflict Kate goes through in trying to reconcile her idealism with the violent reality of the anti-drug unit. The first third or so of the movie comprises close-ups of Kate's face as she takes in and tries to digest what she sees. We have Kate in profile, Kate in full frontal view, Kate in 3/4 profile, over and over and over. Emily Blunt, who portrays Kate, acts like a block of wood, so the close-ups completely fail to convey any emotion or any real feel of Kate's thoughts and emotions. The rest of the movie continues in the same vein but without so many close-ups of Kate's face.
The last third of the movie (3 scenes: the tunnel, the assassination, and the final scene) are shot in the dark so that the viewer cannot see what is going on most of the time. The most ludicrous passage in the entire movie occurs during the assassination scene, when the bad guy (a drug lord) tells the good guy (the US agent who is sort of a bad guy, too) that the people he works for (the US government) are no better than the drug lords. About the violence the drug lords perpetrate, he asks, "Who did we learn it from?" Ah, yes. Another Hollywood statement that beneath it all, the US is to blame for yet another world problem. Apparently the US taught the drug lords to cut off people's heads, throw live people vats of acid, and so on. Happens all the time in the US, right?
Other reviewers in the "Hated It" category have a done a good job of detailing the various idiocies of the plot, so I won't repeat them. Just take it from me that everything bad they say about the movie is true.
This movie pretends to be one of gritty realism. It is really just trash in every regard.