Lots of gritty realism

Rating: 6/10 (27 September 2017)

SICARIO is an intense and gritty drug war thriller that follows an FBI agent as she teams up with some DEA agents to wage war on drug gangs in south-of-the-border Mexico. It's a film that features oodles of gritty realism, along with graphic depictions of violence and the like, much like Denis Villeneuve's previous movie PRISONERS. The grand, epic-style action sequences that fuel SICARIO make it a superior film to that, although I still found it a little lacking.
Despite the length of the film and the big speeches and the like, the story actually turns out to be very simplistic and little different from the story lines in an average low rent action flick. I'm no fan of Emily Blunt, aside from her role in THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA, and as in LOOPER she feels out of place here. Luckily you get veteran genre actors like Benicio Del Toro to balance things out a bit. Some of the establishing shots, like of the convoy of soldiers riding through the streets of Mexico, are quite breathtaking, and the film has an excellent soundtrack that adds plenty of suspense to the proceedings. Overall, I did find it all a little hollow though.