Blunt Instrument

Rating: 7/10 (9 October 2015)

We know from the recent documentary Cartel that the US is engaged in its second (following Vietnam) unwinnable war within half a century but because Sicario is ostensibly fiction the viewer is allowed a glimpse of a light at the end of a tunnel - which is not entirely metaphorical. On another level it's a case study of how idealism is the first victim in this kind of war as by-the-book FBI agent Emily Blunt sees her ideals bludgeoned at every turn having volunteered to take part in an operation designed to bring down the head honcho of the drug cartel which makes a Multinational look like a mom and pop grocery store. Though it may draw the fifteen to twenty-three year old male audience they are not its real target and overall we have to settle for three exceptional acting performances rather than wall-to-wall carnage.