REVIEW OF SICARIO

year: 2015

Like any film centering on the "truth" being covered up during an undercover operation having to do with the usually crooked and nefarious American government, SICARIO, which means, basically, Hitman, could have gone a lot of ways, and we've seen this kind of vehicle many times before, again and again, usually with the same template and turnout...

But here the sole perspective remains on one solitary character tightly enough to where Emily Blunt's FBI agent Kate Macer doesn't know a thing about what's going on after being hired to help two agents... a dry Josh Brolin as Matt Graver and a mysterious Benicio Del Toro as some kind of freelance rogue named Alejandro... take down the Mexican drug cartel. Blunt's Kate is merely along for the ride, and there are plenty of blind spots wherein most of the suspense occurs.

The script is lean and tight while the direction is both intense and fitfully, surprisingly underwhelming since everything is perfectly clear with an exception of our in-the-dark ingenue, who never gets preachy or overly-idealistic upon figuring things out. And that's when SICARIO morphs from a slowburn Neo Noir political thriller into modern Spaghetti Western territory that, by the end, is more of a mesmerizing visual experience than a motion picture – finally worth paying for.

RATING: ****