The drug trade

Rating: 5/10 (9 March 2016)

Sicario wants to examine the USA's role in the Mexican drugs war with special ops taking on the Mexican cartels in a ruthless manner, hoping the ends justifies the means but in reality just muddies the waters even more.
The film starts of horrifically, a raid in a house in Arizona leads to the discovery of a some corpses blamed on the Mexican Sonora cartel. Director Denis Villeneuve also then makes the mistake of signalling what will happen next.
This kind of bluntness in the narrative will follow through the rest of the movie.
FBI agent Kate Macer (Emily Blunt) after the Arizona incident is assigned to a special task force to go after the main guys running the Sonora cartel. The special ops team is led by arrogant and shady CIA operative Matt Graver (Josh Brolin) who you figure will have an hidden agenda. Accompanying them is Alejandro (Benicio del Toro) as some kind of dubious lawyer turned law enforcement officer from Mexico.
Although after an interesting opening the film slows down to a snail's pace and it exposes the story as being muddled and the characters specially Brolin as one dimensional and Blunt as someone who is out of her scope in this operation and it dawns on her that she is not only being used but also placed herself in grave danger.
The story only perks up later when the film focuses on revenge driven Alejandro allowing Benecio del Toro to take centre stage as he goes after the head of the cartel.
The film has good photography by Roger Deakins, Villeneuve wants to give the film a grittiness but the story lacks nuance.