Sicario

Sicario (15)

USA 2015 121 mins Dir: Denis Villeneuve Cast: Emily Blunt, Benicio Del Toro, Josh Brolin, Jon Bernthal, Daniel Kaluuya

Exerting an iron grip from its very opening frames, Sicario is a compelling immersion in a 21st century inferno. Wading into the bloody consequences of the war on drugs being waged between the US and Mexico, Prisoners director Denis Villeneuve once again proves himself a master of creepy atmosphere, forcing us to stare into an abyss where we’d rather not venture.

Thank goodness for the essential decency and humanity provided by the increasingly excellent Emily Blunt; her character, idealistic FBI agent Kate Macer, is our audience surrogate, and it’s through her eyes that the dark drama unfolds. The attention-grabbing opening sequence in which the Feds storm a drug den on the US border sets the forbidding tone for what follows, abetted by Roger Deakins’ typically outstanding, prowling cinematography and Johan Johansson’s growling score, resembling nothing less than a beast ascending from the Hadean depths.

It’s this filmmaking craft that holds the attention even when Taylor Sheridan’s screenplay skirts cliché (or, in its later stages, incoherency). Having caught the attention of an elite task force, Kate is enlisted by the elusive Matt (Josh Brolin, wielding absolute power but in the most casual way possible) to ‘shake the tree.’ The ultimate aim is to track down the whereabouts of a notorious cartel figurehead who has been responsible for the plague of drug-related violence currently swamping the Mexican border town of Juarez.

Accompanied by the mysterious Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro), whose lone wolf role remains deliberately ambiguous until late on, Kate quickly realises that this is a conflict daubed in blood and outlined in shades of grey. Coming to suspect her superiors, she’s eventually forced to question the futility of her role, a search for a ‘vaccine’ to the cartel infection that may ultimately be impossible to find.

In spite of its brutal, brooding subject matter, the film’s handsome craft is plain to see, several Hitchcockian set-pieces expertly grinding away at the nerves. One involving a vehicle convoy across the border into Juarez is lengthy and nerve-wracking, Deakins’ lustrous visuals and Johansson’s synthetic groaning virtually screaming impending catastrophe. Another key scene involving a night-time raid is also expertly handled, the look of the film jumping between sickly green night vision hues, ghostly white infra-red and verite documentary realism.

As with Prisoners and also his unsettling dual identity thriller Enemy, director Villeneuve is excellent at raising the suspense to unbearable levels, accentuating dread-fuelled details such as an apparently innocuous wrist-band or a car full of passengers who may or may not be wielding firearms. Technically impressive though the film is, it’s Blunt’s performance that makes it emotionally engaging, the actress palpably resounding with shock during the more violent moments and subtly conveying a sense of Kate’s moral erosion. Complementing her wide-eyed performance is the sleepy-eyed one of Del Toro, always a master of embodying lupine, secretive individuals filled with the capacity for extreme violence. It’s to the actor’s credit that Alejandro’s lack of demonstrative mannerisms is so engrossing and, ultimately, shocking.

The film is by no means perfect. As it proceeds, the narrative becomes increasingly mired in names and details that become confusing, although one could argue this is all down to the story being told from Kate’s viewpoint. Yet even that becomes questionable with the movie ultimately switching between various character viewpoints in a manner that’s somewhat alienating. One could also question whether the movie is saying anything of substance about its troubling subject matter, caught as it is between issue-tainment and the needs of a pot boiling procedural thriller. But for all its flaws, there’s no denying the dark allure of Villeneuve’s movie: in the hands of such skilled filmmakers it becomes, to quote Twin Peaks, a beautiful nightmare.