A tense look at the drugs war on America's southern border

Rating: 9/10 (31 May 2017)

Kate Macer is an FBI agent who is part of an anti-kidnap squad but after taking part in a raid that leads to the discovery of dozens of bodies, victims of a drug cartel, she finds herself seconded to a specialist task force that is targeting the cartel. This task force is led Matt Graver, a CIA operative and includes Alejandro Gillick, a Mexican former prosecutor with shadowy motives, and several members of Special Forces. She quickly starts to wonder what she has got herself into. On her first day they cross into Mexico to extradite a senior cartel member; an operation that ends with a shootout on a highway just north of the border. This man gives information that leads to the location of a cartel tunnel under the border as well as cartel bank accounts. The real plan then becomes clear; the hope is that by creating such chaos for the cartels will recall their senior man in the US and he can be tracked to the cartel's leader.
This is a tense thriller that had me gripped from start to finish; it is not a feel-good film though. Apart from Agent Macer and her FBI partner there are no really good characters; Graver and Gillick are morally questionable as it emerges that Macer is only really there to rubber stamp operations that would otherwise be illegal. This doesn't mean we can't sympathise with them as we see the brutality of the cartels the sight of numerous bodies hidden in the walls of a house and hanging from a bridge in Juárez is quite disturbing. The action is restricted to a few brief moments but when it happens it is sudden, intense and feels real. The cast to a great job; Emily Blunt is a convincing lead as Kate Macer and Josh Brolin impresses as Graver however it is Benicio del Toro who stands out as Gillick, a character who's loyalty is far from obvious. Director Denis Villeneuve does a fine job making it all feel very real. Overall I'd definitely recommend this to anybody who wants a really tense thriller without a blank and white morality.