Review: Sicario (2015)

Denis Villeneuve's third English language feature is a pristinely directed film that simultaneously manages to be a tightly wound genre piece and a soberingly cynical and frank look at the brutal "War on Drugs".

Villeneuve's direction is crisp and precise, perfectly allowing the world of the film to slowly draw you in, all while steadily racking up the tension and suspense with each passing minute. Foregoing the standard use of shaky cam for thrillers, Villeneuve instead artfully dances his camera through the film with either stedicam supported handheld camera work, or a calculated stillness, which in turn creates even more tension, as you are often given long, lingering spaces of deceptive calm, punctuated by intense moments of brutality and violence.

Villeneuve also extracts intense yet subdued performances from his cast, and does so with confidence and skill. Emily Blunt delivers what might her best performance since The Young Victoria here, as the stalwart and idealistic FBI Agent Kate Macer, who, while being the person with the best of intentions, is woefully naive as to the sheer scope and brutally of the drug war, and the lengths people will go to declare victory in what is swiftly becoming a futile and endless conflict. Blunt handles her performance with deft grace, keeping herself from avoiding melodrama, while still giving her character emotions and reliability.

Across from Blunt is the impeccably cast duo of Josh Brolin and Benicio del Toro, both of whom give some of their best performances here. Brolin takes his character, the morally ambiguous and unscrupulous Matt Graver and gives him a unique spark in what could have easily been a cliche "corrupt suit" type role. Instead, Brolin makes sure to give Graver a charisma and charm, keeping him loose and perpetually upbeat, while always hinting to an undercurrent of deviousness and complete moral bankruptcy.

del Toro, meanwhile, is absorbing as the mysterious and intense Alejandro, a man of mysterious origins who speaks in a low, smoothly accented voice, and carries with him a brooding, unrelenting intensity. Often keeping his voice soft and controlled, del Toro completely owns every scene in which he's in, and in doing so, crafts an incredibly finely crafted performance of intensity and darkness.

The film's score seamlessly compliments and weaves through the film, with composer Jóhann Jóhannsson's score a low, growling rumble of distorted strings and orchestral effects. Like looming thunder, it growls and rumbles, helping to build the tension in an organic and memorable way, even while it eschews most semblance of conventional melody.

And, as always, cinematography genius Roger Deakins creates another amazingly subtle yet impactful palette for the film. In a carefully constructed use of natural light and source lighting, Deakins' work perfectly emulates the heat and harshness of the deserts of Arizona and Mexico, while also capturing some wondrously, desolately beautiful vistas. Another highlight is a brilliantly orchestrated sequence filmed almost entirely with night vision technology, allowing the already intense tunnel sequence to gain an even more unsettling, almost alien aura.

So in the end, Sicario is an intense thriller, perfectly directed by Villeneuve, beautifully lensed by Deakins, and with a trio of great performances. While Taylor Sheridan's screenplay might paint its characters as somewhat archetypical, it still manages to create a great thriller, and a strong entry in the genre.

5 out of 5 stars.