Extremely well made crime thriller by Villeneuve

Rating: 9/10 (2 October 2015)

Minor/Vague Spoilers
Sicario is an American crime thriller directed by Denis Villeneuve about an idealistic FBI agent, Kate Macer, played by Emily Blunt, who is enlisted by a government official to help a joint task force to take down a Mexican drug cartel. I was intrigued by the premise and after the buzz it was getting from the 2015 Cannes Film Festival I was excited to see this after it was finally released in Australia.
When I was aware that Villeneuve was the director of this film I was excited just from looking at his track record, his previous two films "Prisoner" and "Enemy" both being top 10 movies of their respective year, for me.
The cinematography in this film is amazing and effectively shows you the scope and brings you into the world that Villeneuve is trying to portray. Some of the shots would stay still for a few moments and I was on the edge of my seat even when close to nothing was happening I still felt like something might any second. The colours, yellow and orange, are very prominent which gives you the feel of the landscape being in a desert area.
The performances across the board were as close to perfect as you could get. The main protagonist Kate, is who we see the film through their eyes, so to speak, and when she first arrives and is being driven through Mexico we see the world and how shocking it is and we feel the same way she does. Emily Blunt is amazing, playing another heroine after her role in Edge of Tomorrow, she brings a lot of different sides to her character, both having just enough vulnerability and strength to make her relatable as a main character that the audience can root for. Josh Brolin, in my opinion, had his best performance since No Country for Old Men, playing Matt Graver, one of the people who recruit Kate. Alejandro, portrayed by Benicio Del Toro, is the star of this movie. Even though his character has a lot of blank stares and seems to remain extremely calm throughout the entire movie, his true emotions may be suppressed because of something that happened before the film. The three main stars mix well together and no one stands out for the wrong reasons.
Even some of the smaller side characters Victor Garber, Jon Bernthal, and Jeffrey Donovan bring something to the film and have great performances. Villeneuve certainly brings out the best in these smaller characters that certainly have an impact on the three main characters that create a nice through line throughout the movie.
Tonally, this is a very dark film and there isn't very many light moments, almost ever, even when it may look like there could be, it switches and goes straight back to the dark world we have become so used to. You are set up from the opening scene to know what kind of movie this will be. Maybe it speaks to some twisted person deep within me but I really enjoyed this aspect and how they never let up because that just made it seem even more real. Some of my favourite moments were when there were these tense, suspenseful moments that had no music behind them to try and enhance those scenes because it wasn't needed at all. These made me more invested in the film and made me highly anticipate what was going to happen next.
When the movie ended I was in awe and absolutely loved what I had just seen. Everything was strung together to create an almost perfect film and I really hope this gets a nomination because it definitely deserves it and I'm really looking forward to the next movie Villeneuve directs.