Sicario (2015)

Rating: 7/10 (13 October 2015)

Sicario (2015) The great writer Carlos Fuentes once described his Mexico as a "tragic country," that is like a Greek tragedy. The sad and unspoken fact today is that Mexico has been consumed by the illicit drug business. Drug lords preside over monarchies that divert inconceivable wealth from Mexico and the Latin American economies to satisfy an unquenchable thirst of demand from so-called developed countries with the U.S. being the largest trading partner.
Freely translated."Sicario" means Hit-man. The writers for this picture danced around too-hot-to-touch serious issues and barely touched on the realities. For example, the street scene shots in Ciudad Juarez only indirectly showed to the astute eye the posters of the missing women which is a very real serial murder going on today and a much more interesting plot topic than what was presented. Our hit-man, perfectly cast with Benicio Del Toro, is on a personal mission to avenge his murdered wife and daughter at the orders of a cartel. Let's visit this one again. A professional killer for money is on a mission to kill the people or group that killed his love ones using paid killers. But wait, there's more. A tandem plot is a CIA driven rogue unit attempting to flush out through various illegal cross border raids into Mexico to create enough of a disturbance that the jefe will emerge from his hideout to settle matters. And then they got him. Never mind international law. They know better and only a select and privileged few know what is the right thing to do. "Just watch me." No questions please. They then plow through this distortion of history in a good guys-bad guys John Wayne joke. Thank God this in only Hollywood (I hope).
Emily Blunt is completely miscast and misdirected but does an admirable job with what she is given. Between some serious cigarette drags (they even showed the brand! Really? Awesome), her character objects, almost quits this fiasco, and more than politely questions a small army of macho dudes with all kinds of military hardware to play with. Despite the story line so fantastic it could have been dreamed up by the Reagan Administration there are some areas that shine, particularly the sound track and the photography.
This film is a fine example of how a mediocre, humorless, bad airplane drama can achieve a level of interest and tension through a musical score. Stark desert scenes, the panorama of Juarez that stretches poverty to the horizon, the hideousness of the Wall, are all scored with dramatic music and tones that do more than words to remind the viewer of the tragic side of Mexico.