This is the land of wolves now.

Rating: 7/10 (10 July 2018)

Emily Blunt plays Kate Macer, the leader of a rescue response unit with the FBI. She gets recruited for a major offensive against drug cartels in Mexico, having to work for some very cagey people. The guy in charge is Matt Graver (Josh Brolin), and he's not forthcoming with many details. She also must deal with an enigmatic stranger named Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro), along for the ride in some sort of advisory capacity. There will be some surprises in store for Kate as she embarks upon this sordid journey.
The term "Sicario" gets explained at the outset; in Mexico, it's the word for "hitman". That lets us know that we're going to be in for something a bit different. You won't see the sort of typical action-movie treatment of such material. In fact, there are no real action set pieces to speak of. In their place, we get a nuanced, low-key, somewhat grounded drama of cops vs. crooks. We also get a narrative (written by Taylor Sheridan) in which "good" guys aren't always so clearly defined, and where you have people like Graver, whose job it is to sort of "shake things up" so that drug lords like Fausto Alarcon (Julio Cesar Cedillo) deviate from their usual patterns. In the end, this war on drugs reduces some people to utterly ruthless and cold-blooded methods.
Director Denis Villeneuve never tries to dazzle you. His filmmaking efficiency is of a more matter-of-fact style, as he eases you into the story bit by bit. There is a fairly devastating explosion (and loss of life) near the beginning that does influence Kates' actions for the rest of the picture, and a decent shootout in traffic as obviously unsavoury types are spotted by the authorities.
Extremely well shot (the cinematography is by Roger Deakins, so that comes as no surprise), it features good acting by a cast also including Victor Garber ("Titanic" '97), Jon Bernthal ('The Walking Dead'), Daniel Kaluuya ("Get Out"), Jeffrey Donovan ('Burn Notice'), and Raoul Max Trujillo ("Apocalypto"). Blunt is fine as an idealistic young woman who gets an eye-opening, Brolin is pretty amusing, and Del Toro is excellent as he gives a very controlled performance.
Much tragedy and devastation has been the result of decades of drug wars, and "Sicario" illustrates this quite well.
Seven out of 10.