Ordinary

Rating: 5/10 (26 September 2015)

Sicario is about as ordinary a thriller as you can make without going too wrong. The acting is generally good and the photography is beautiful. Where the film goes wrong is in two places. (1) The direction fails to take advantage of two situations in which enormous tension could have been built and built - the scene on the line waiting to cross the border and the scene in the tunnel. Instead of being masterpieces, these scenes are merely OK. The setups are excellent, but the execution is merely ordinary. (2) The character played by Blunt is not true to herself, in the end, yet there is no real compelling reason to explain the transition. Films where the protagonist changes as a result of some fundamental reckoning are great, but in this case, it doesn't hold up for me. This is why the film ends as it does, because there is nothing to sustain the ending around the main character.
All in all not a bad film, but highly predictable, not very subtle, and nothing you haven't seen already.