Much ambition, little substance

Rating: 5/10 (15 April 2020)

It is done with great ambition and a big budget. But, it has very little to show for it.
Yes, some of the scenes are very well done. They may not look beautiful, because they are not meant to be, but, they have an effect. The aerial views of the wastelands and poor cities of Mexico, the sequence in the underground tunnel... Well done and impactful, but, nothing really special, it's been done before.
It does feature decent pefromances by the main actors, but, not nearly as much as hyped. Emily Blunt is not very good, really. Sure, her character is highly implausible, she's tough and strong and emotional and indecisive and butch and feminine... it's almost impossible to play well. Still, she's not doing almost any of that believably. Del Toro is OK, but, he's just "doing his thing", we see very little glimpse of his torment for the loss of his wife and daughter. Sure, by that time, he might have pushed it back in his mind, but, then he wouldn't still be on the revenge path with such passion. Brolin is mostly faking it. The only one to do a really good job is Victor Garber, whose "I just work in this government agency" routine is spot on, it was like looking at one of those people.
The story is pretty weak and without much sense or impact. Things just happen and are tragic, but, it's way too unrealistic to pass as a kind of "scripted documentary", so the lack of sense or conclusion makes it pretty much pointless. Sure, we know that drug cartels, Mexican in particular, are very violent and that CIA and such are essentially "playing along" and it makes sense to point this out to those that actually don't know this. But, to have that impact, movie had to be very different. It also doesn't work as the story about Del Toro's character (which the title implies), he's too little in the story.
So, if you like violent thrillers that have some loose sense of reality or correlation to real-world events that also look well done, this is a movie for you. Otherwise, pass.