Awesome Movie. Story delivers..

Rating: 9/10 (24 December 2015)

I found this movie quite enjoyable and captivating. Every moment lent its part to the story which by the way, was quite well written. Emily Blunt, Benicio Del Toro and Josh Brolin are the star actors for me. They all play key roles and deliver beautifully on their parts.
Having read the other comments especially those that rated it poorly for various reasons, I would love to address those I can:
1)Poorly written story/not up to potential: On the contrary, the story did exactly what it was meant to do..People who watch movies through genre-specific lenses would be disappointed of course.. I do not, instead I just follow the story plot step by step and watch it unravel.. They did an excellent job here keeping the viewer guessing what the objective could be until it finally unravels at the end. This made the movie a lot more interesting for me..
The dead bodies in the walls of the house that was raided at the beginning and the headless corpses hanging off the bridge are pointing to the same thing.. 'The grim nature of a drug cartel run world..' end-of!! To make or expect anything more of it is to your own peril..
2)Character of Emily Blunt (Kate) was useless: What?? Then such a viewer did not get the story. Again the very well written story supplied us with all the necessary details.. Kate (FBI agent) and her partner where recruited/needed to legitimize the operation of the CIA within that region..
Secondly, Kate was the typical idealist from the black and white world where she reigned as something of a star.. Throwing her into the larger and darker world where the lines of good and evil are not well defined but rather a blurry mess of gray matter.. gives the viewer the opportunity to see the collision of these two worlds and the effect it has on the key players..
True to her nature, Kate fails to realize when she is out of her depth; she fails to adapt.. even after her boss Jennings advises her to do so but in her small mindedness with little or no understanding tries to stamp her self-importance on the circumstance she finds herself in. However she is completely and expertly knocked-out.. Oh what a joy!! It is precious to see her character give in to defeat when she lowers the gun she has pointed at Alejandro at the end.. The disaster here would have been if the story gave her character some kind of triumph in her misguided quest for justice.. That would have been unrealistic and irritating..
This is the reason for Kate's character, to present us with the dichotomy between the small fairy-tale land of rules and the much larger and darker land of the wolves..
This is a must watch!!!