I added this to the list entirely due to how much I liked most of director Denis Villeneueve’s work and of course Sicario is highly regarded in its own right. I know that the posters on Broken Forum mention it often with mixed feelings and I’d vaguely heard that there is going to be a sequel later this year.

Kate Macer and Reggie Wayne are FBI agents who are raiding a safehouse suspected of being owned by Mexican cartel boss Manuel Diaz when they discover dozens of corpses. This massive escalation prompts the creation of an inter-agency task force led by Matt Graver and Kate is invited to join it. Their first operation has the team, accompanied by a squad of soldiers from Delta Force, crossing the border into Mexico to extract Manuel’s brother Guillermo for interrogation in the US. Kate is introduced to Alejandro Gillick, a mysterious operative who seems highly experienced. Kate however finds herself questioning the legality and morality of their actions, especially after they discover an underground tunnel for drug smuggling by torturing Guillermo and interrogating Mexicans caught illegally crossing the border. However she also finds it impossible to argue against the necessity of such brutal tactics when she finds herself being targeted by the cartel.

This film has a lot of fans and it has to be said that its production values and action choreography is top notch. It really makes you feel like you’re in the middle of a modern, realistic special ops mission. The combined CIA / US Army task force is like a well-oiled machine that leverages experience with superior technology to achieve its objectives. There are no dumb, nervous grunts here. Everyone involved are professionals. It makes it easy to believe that this is exactly what the US government gets up to when out of the public sight. Unfortunately I found it impossible to like this film because while most of the other characters are plausibly competent, it also plays up the character of Alejandro as this inhumanly skilled, utterly ruthless killer. I found it quite jarring how the whole operation is properly planned and supported but the climax depends on this one person infiltrating the cartel boss’ house all by himself.

Most of all however I detest what this film does to the character of Kate Macer. Villeneuve’s films usually involve a twist of some kind. The closest thing to a twist here is that Kate believes she is the protagonist and leads the audience to believe that she is the protagonist, but the film is really all about Alejandro. Of course, there is a lot of value in seeing the dark deeds done in the name of the US government from the perspective of a relatively normal person but this film really goes out of its way to show how helpless and outmatched Kate is on every level. It’s understandable enough when they show how the cartel is capable of infiltrating the local police and she doesn’t expect it but they even show her as losing her primary weapon during a shootout. I get that Villeneuve wants to show that she is a lamb among wolves but I don’t get why her partner Reggie doesn’t get the same treatment.

I also find the moral quandary that underlies the whole film to be facile and frankly nauseating. It is saying that in order to fight monsters effectively, these agents who act on behalf of America must be monsters as well. While there is some agonizing over that, this film makes it very clear that it considers such tactics to be absolutely necessary and that they really are effective. Fair enough, except that this side-steps the real problem of condoning such tactics. If we allow government agents to behave like monsters, how do we keep them under control and ensure that they act only in our interests and not their own? Kate Macer is a weak character not because she is uncomfortable with the excesses that the likes of Matt and Alejandro resort to but because her convictions aren’t strong enough to lead her to challenge her boss over how they are supposed to ensure that such unaccountable agents are always pointed towards the right enemies.

Sicario remains a competently shot action thriller and it is enjoyable to watch for that reason. It also has to be said that Benicio del Toro’s performance as Alejandro is mesmerizing. But people are also praising it for its cold, hard look into the realities of the drug war and I don’t think its insights are particularly novel or profound at all.