Bad guys without badges versus bad guys with badges. Muddled story.

Rating: 3/10 (13 October 2015)

The movie contains huge doses of violence, profanity, tobacco and alcohol use. That's already a bad sign that there's something wrong with the story. Here's the problem: the audience is expected to accept the concept of gangster as hero (played by Benicio del Toro). If you are okay with that premise, then the story makes sense (vendatta - bad guy becoming good guy to go after other bad guys who did him wrong, for whatever reason). If not, then be prepared lots of gratuitous violence and mayhem, as the FBI is co-opted to cover for flagrant and wholesale violations of international law. There is one scene in the movie depicting a fire fight that alone would have sparked a war, or at least a call for an emergency session of the UN Security Council. In fact, including such a scene would have improved this movie immensely. The thing is, unless the movie is meant to be a morality tale, there has to be a clear delineation between the good guys and bad guys. That this movie lacks, thus making the story pointless. This movie depicts US paramilitary forces conducting military operations in a foreign country to deal with a criminal problem. True, the story is fiction. The problem is that as the line between who is good and who is bad gets blurred, the story get muddled. After a while, it is difficult to tell the difference between the good guys and bad guys. Granted that the drug cartel guys are bad guys. But when compared to the brazen tactics being used by the other side, it raises doubts as to who is posing more of a threat to the public safety - the the gangsters or the guys with the badges. What good are having bad guys if the good guys are no good too? Without revealing details of story, suffice it to say that if the shenanigans depicted in this movie occurred for real, the US government would have a lot of explaining to do