A little dose of action to focus more on the thriller

Rating: 7/10 (6 October 2015)

FBI Special Agent Kate Macer leads an anti kidnapping team raid an Arizona house tied to Sonora drug cartel's VIP Manuel Diaz. Surviving an IED, she finds her boss discussing about her with a "DOD adviser" Matt Graver. Matt asks her to join his team targeting Fausto Alarcon, Diaz's leader, and Kate agrees. She meets Matt the next day and he introduces Alejandro. They fly to El Paso and join in extraditing Guillermo, Diaz's brother, from Mexico back to El Paso. Kate pries about Alejandro and he reveals he's Colombian. They make it back pass the border but get stuck in traffic near the border post. Everybody scouts for possible attacks. Alejandro tells Kate to draw her weapon, to her confusion and hesitation. Soon he spots a car with gang members and calls it in. The team gets ready as Matt orders to follow the gang's actions in engaging. A gang member steps out and the whole team quickly exits the cars aiming at the gang members, warning them. One wrong move from a gang member sends the entire gang crew dead by bullet storm.
Kate questions the shooting claiming it out of protocol, suspecting Matt as CIA. Matt dismisses this as he brings Guillermo into a building. Guillermo seems afraid as he sees Alejandro. At night they fly back Arizona. Reg picks up Kate but Matt orders them to join him to Tucson. There they question immigrants from Nogales, Mexico, where Guillermo claimed a secret tunnel into the US is located. The next day sees them busting Diaz's money launderers in a bank. Despite Matt's warning, Kate goes in the bank seeking evidence to build a case against Diaz, and puts her face on the CCTV. She brings Matt evidence but he refuses to build the case. Kate and Reg take this to their superiors, who deny them any action, hinting that Matt's team gets the approval of an elected office way above them. Frustrated, Reg takes Kate to his regular bar. There he meets his friend a local cop and introduces her to Kate. Kate brings the cop to her place. But she stops as she notices he wears the same bracelet as on Diaz'd money. He tries to kill her as she fights, but Alejanro comes at the right moment. The next day Kate and Reg witness Matt's team's unique resources, such as drones and SpecOps soldiers, in hunting Alarcon.
Matt confirms their first objective is accomplished as Diaz leaves for Mexico to meet Alarcon, whose location is unknown. Matt feels it's the right time to strike the tunnel, and reveals that CIA cannot actually operate within US soil except the operation is endorsed by another domestic agency. This reveals that he's been manipulating Kate all along. Yet Kate decides join the tunnel strike. Alejandro tells the team he'll move ahead as point, not needing help. The assault goes well although Kate loses her rifle. She follows Alejandro as he reaches an exit and ambushes a local Estata Policia officer delivering drug cargo. The cop asks whether Alejandro is Medellin and Kate appears behind him. Alejandro takes the cop hostage. Kate asks what Medellin is, but he instructs her to go back and don't follow him. She refuses and instead aims her gun at him, to which he replies with two stunning shots to her body. He then leaves with the cop as hostage.
The team helps Alejandro track Diaz and he makes the cop pulls him over. He tricks Diaz into taking him into Alarcon's place, and kills him after he gets inside. Kate returns to the team, punching Matt in the face. As she settles down, Matt reveals that Alejandro is their second objective, the agent infiltrated into Mexico to kill Alarcon. Alejandro casually kills off Alarcon and his family, settling his vengeance over his wife and daughter. The next day Kate finds Alejandro in her place as he asks her to sign a letter expressing that the operation had gone according to procedure. He threatens her as she refuses, to which she finally yield and signs. As he exits the place she manages to assemble her gun and aims at him, but she refrains from shooting him.
The story seems quite interesting although to be honest this theme of drug war has more recently descended into the script for B-movies. Thus the movie producers have quite a big job in regaining the interest of the action thriller audiences in general. Starting the movie with the raid scene is a common move to plant interest into the movie's opening. Yet I have to say that after that the movie tends to became a little bit disappointing.
The movie nicely plays on at the thriller side, adding more and more tension into the scenes and audience anticipation by adding suspenseful scoring and duration. But I find that the duration adding at times had gone too far to where the turning point actually happens and harvest from the built intensity of the thriller.
The action side however helps to focus more on the thriller side very much. By giving short doses of real action but instead emphasizing on the short action's quality and tying it critically to the story flow, the movie nicely grasps its more thriller side of its nature.
The acting overall is quite good although I find some imbalance between the main roles. Emily Blunt's acting is just adequate, nothing really special. It's just enough to portray the curious and |by the book| attitude of the character. Yet she could done better as she did on her last role on Edge of Tomorrow (2014). Josh Brolin did enough to cover his angle for the story, but Benicio del Toro's performance is somewhat nice. His acting can really grasp the whole mystery and secrecy shrouding the background of his character.
My final view for Sicario (2015) is a score of 7 out of 10.