Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10
Cast: Emily Blunt, Benicio Del Toro, Josh Brolin, Victor Garber, Daniel Kaluuya, Julio Cedillo, Jon Bernthal, Bernardo P. Saracino, Kim Larrichio, Eb Lottimer.
Who is the pawn in the biggest game when it comes to trafficking on the borders of the United States of America and Mexico? Arguably the richest country on Earth per capita and one of the poorest sitting side by side, the inequality between the two countries perhaps never really equalled out going back to the war between the two countries in which had land not been lost and ceded to the United States, all that money that flowed from the discovery of oil would have seen the economies of the two countries wildly different as the 21st Century progressed.
It is this inequality, the easy corruption on both sides of the border by certain individuals that sees the flow of narcotics between the two states as a test of resources and in some cases will, as a lucrative and highly volatile market. It is a market that sees many people die for their involvement and in Sicario it is death that is very much on the mind of all concerned. The lines of carcasses that are hung in warning to the people of Mexico, the treatment by some law enforcement agencies as if treating the whole issue as a game and the capturing of some of the more intense moments of the film through the medium of thermal imaging and night mode, all make the viewer sit up and take notice of things that should never be.
The outcome of the events seems to balance upon the words that may have been said in passing towards the start of the film, when asking about Kate Macer’s subordinate, Josh Brolin’s character Matt Graver dismisses far too easily the effectiveness of Daniel Kaluuya’s Reggie Wayne on what comes over initially as being too clever for the operation and yet disguising his reluctance as being green. It is in this sentence that much of the film then seems to shape itself around and whilst it builds the suspense up between the main three characters, it also reinforces some gender imbalance that perhaps doesn’t sit well with Western audience but to whom is an absolute necessity in some Latin American cultures where the differences between the genders is perhaps arguably more sharply divided.
The divide between idealism and blurred corruption is also noticeable in Sicario and whilst Emily Blunt conveys with some great effect the rationale behind open thinking, it is Benicio Del Toro who really stands head and shoulders above the rest of the cast in his portrayal of the brooding and near silent Alejandro. The silence he projects, the shifting menace he puts over on screen is a reflection of the underlying threat that is ominously just out of the audience’s eye-line throughout but one that is recognisable.
Whilst not the best film around at the moment, Sicario certainly has its moments and those that are the more disturbing, the real moments where the film forces the audience member to remember that not all is roses and wine in many parts of the world, that a very different law holds court and acts as jury and executioner and that revenge is always the order of the day.
A film of undoubted passion, of near fatalism, Sicario will have its followers and its plaudits but the absolute fear of violence for violence’s sake will be a turn off for many.
Ian D. Hall