SICARIO
Dir: Denis Villeneuve
Starring: Emily Blunt, Josh Brolin, Benicio del Toro
Leave it to a Canadian director (Denis Villeneuve, nominated in 2010 for a foreign film Oscar for "Incendies") to pull back the curtain on the drug war and its consequences, compromises, and collateral damage on our southern border. And he does it without flinching or offering anything close to hope for the future. Not since "Traffic" in 2000 (by American Steven Soderburgh, also starring Benicio del Toro!) has a movie tackled this subject so effectively. (Sadly, the situation has only gotten worse in the intervening 15 years).
The fictional story is more focused than the interweaving stories in "Traffic." The movie starts with a tense FBI raid on a suburban home in Chandler, Arizona (and its gruesome contents) and doesn't let up for the next two hours. Emily Blunt plays the FBI agent recruited into an ambiguous governmnet operation to catch the ringleader of the Mexican cartel responsible for much of the bloodshed and drugs infitrating the U.S. By the time the make-shift team of FBI, CIA, and assorted special forces storms a drug-smuggling tunnel with night-vision goggles and heavy weaponry, the movie reaches "Zero Dark Thirty"-level intensity.
All three leads listed above are worthy of award consideration for shedding any semblance of stardom for their roles. Special mention also to cinematographer (Coen Brothers' favorite Roger Deakins) for the aerial shots of the desert landscape and to the ominous music score (by Oscar nominee Johan Johansson--"The Theory of Everything") for heightening the film's drama. I especially liked how the story never loses touch with the personal toll this war has taken on the Mexican people--very literally left in the crossfire. This movie is not for the faint of heart.
