A beautiful and tense movie

Rating: 7/10 (25 November 2018)

This review contains spoilers.
Sicario is an action thriller film that premiered in 2015. The movie is directed by Denis Villeneuve and stars Emily Blunt, Benicio Del Toro, and Josh Brolin. The movie follows Kate Macer played by Emily Blunt that discovers cartel activity in a FBI raid. Kate and her partner join a task force that seeks to bring the cartel to justice.
Denis Villeneuve should be commended for his great directing. This direction is one of the movies biggest strengths as the entire movie is pretty to watch. Every scene sets up the stakes well and also the intention of every scene is crystal clear. This movie has gorgeous panoramic vistas and overhead shots. There is a night vision and thermal scene that simply is cool to experience.
The action in the action scenes are not the complete focus in Sicario. This movie prefers to set up the plot of the movie and prioritize that for its action set pieces. This is absolutely worth the build-up as it makes the action scenes and the effects of it more satisfying. One of the examples in this movie is when the tunnel is raided. The tunnel being raided is both a cool scene to watch as well as leading to the finale that built up Alejandro. The movie is riddled with examples like this that make the movie more exciting to watch.
All of the actors do a great performance in this movie Emily Blunt's Kate Macer is a naive Federal Bureau of Investigation agent in the world of the Mexican drug cartel. Kate is more of the audience's character than a character that is meant to be mysterious. The characters that take the show are Benicio del Toro's Alejandro and Josh Brolin's Matt Graver. These two character's experience in the world of the Mexican cartels is evident. The movie's secret protagonist is Benicio del Toro's Alejandro. This character undergoes his own personal story that both Kate Macer and the audience experiences.
There are some aspects of the movie that are meandering without much point. One of these is the plot with Mexican police officer Silvio. This plot got pointless and did not connect with the main story well. The story was already understood to impact many civilian lives. When Silvio runs into Alejandro the result is already clear. The entire setup was not worth the result.
I would recommend Sicario. The movie is a tight action thriller.
Grade: B