Quartile rating: 8.5/10 · 2 ratings
An idealistic FBI agent is enlisted by a government task force to aid in the escalating war against drugs at the border area between the U.S. and Mexico.
Sicario is a masterclass in tension-building, with Roger Deakins' cinematography standing as some of the finest work of the decade—the tunnel raid sequence and the aerial desert shots are genuinely exceptional. The ensemble acting, led by Emily Blunt, Benicio del Toro, and Josh Brolin, is uniformly excellent, with del Toro in particular delivering a quietly menacing performance. The plot is a taut, morally complex examination of institutional corruption and the drug war, subverting the typical action-thriller framework by making the protagonist increasingly powerless. Novelty is above average but not exceptional—the grimy, cynical government procedural has precedents—and the ending, while thematically resonant and deliberately bleak, leaves some narrative threads feeling truncated rather than purposefully ambiguous.