A poor mans Traffic

Rating: 5/10 (25 December 2015)

Benicio came back for sloppy seconds, Douglas decided to pass. I have heard people complain that some of the promotional artwork places Benicio front and center albeit Emily Blunt is the alleged star. Truthfully he is the star, and his work is solid in this. Indeed, he's the reason for watching this as the only decent scenes have him in it. I often wonder why stars don't shut down some of the garbage they are called upon to spew in movies. Emphasis on stars, as I realize everyone else on set just needs to pick up their paycheck and I can respect that. The dialogue Emily is forced to mutter totally ruins the film, is abysmal and worse, distracting. I don't blame her, as I know she can do solid work as well as Benicio. I blame the script. She whines, cries, moans, complains, and mopes around throughout the entire movie; I don't know why. Her character from Edge of Tomorrow would have kicked her butt if she ran into her in this movie. Meanwhile the real star, Benicio is actually in the real movie taking names with his variety of awesome firearms and other assorted weapons. A few Hollywood crony reviewers compared Blunts work in this to Gene Hackman as Popeye in French Connection. Really? That is a low blow and is worse than dancing on the career grave of Hackman. He does not deserve that, hell I can't think of any actor deserving that kind of an insult.
This review would be more interesting if I went off on a further tangent, and discussed Hackman classics like Heartbreakers, but I digress. Back to the alleged plot of Traffic II, oops I mean Sicario. The gist of this movie is Benicio wants vengeance for the death of his wife and daughter at the hands of the drug lord and the equally repulsive United States government wants to oblige him. Josh Brolin plays the doughy CIA thug who dragoons FBI patsy Blunt into the operation to create legitimacy for the whole mess. Thus as Benicio goes around making widows and lowering the crime rate in Mexico significantly, Blunt loafs around spooning up righteous indignation worse than the Church Lady from Saturday Night Live. Blunt can't do anything right, she's the most inept FBI Agent I've seen on film since 1988 when FEDS came out. Blunt gets shot and strangled more times than any villain in the film; in some bitter irony it's even odds most of it is friendly fire. I bet by the end of this movie she wanted to shoot her character as well. This is tragically one of those movies that could have been great. Groundbreaking even. It is not. It's really an individual call if you want to take two hours of your time just to view a half a dozen scenes with Benicio taking out the garbage. Don't, instead watch him in The Hunted, or better yet Traffic.