Denis Villeneuve is one of the most exciting film makers in American cinema right now. He has such a diverse body of work that any year that includes his new release is always a good year. Sicario is this French-Canadian director’s latest movie, which throws a stark light on the drug cartel scene in Mexico.
The movie opens with a wrenching scene in Arizona where a bunch of mutilated bodies are recovered from a den of the cartel run by one Manuel Diaz in Juarez. With the American authorities deciding to up the ante on their war on drugs, the higher authorities decide to give the idealistic FBI agent Kate Macy (Emily Blunt) bigger responsibility to weed out the drug kingpin. She’s enlisted by a government task force official Matt (the marvellous Josh Brolin) who is in tow with a dubious consultant, Alejandro (a menacing Benicio Del Toro). The fourth major character in this strange, cynical, high-decibel movie is the stirring background score by Jóhann Jóhannsson. The industrial techno vibes that pervade the movie lend it a near Apocalypse Now heft. Throughout the movie there’s this drone sound that keeps conveying a sense of doom.
Sicario, which means hitman in Mexico, is not exactly the best movie on the subject. Amat Escalante’s Heli and Cary Fukunaga’s Sin Nombre are much more accomplished works on the subject of illegal immigration and mistreatment of populace by the unforgivingly brutal drug lords. What Villeneuve gets right are the atmospherics. There’s this long scene in the movie where the elite forces in collusion with the local police make a trip across the Juarez town to get hold of a potential informant. That sense of urgency without compromising on the docu-drama style of filming is what makes Sicario such an absorbing watch.
The best part about Villeneuve’s cinema is that nothing grabs you by the scruff of your neck but by the end you would have had such a visceral experience that you’ll head to the nearest available shower and take a long, cold bath. He’s virtually incapable of conceiving a badly shot scene. In the latter half of Sicario there’s a 10-minute scene of US Marines in night vision cameras. Any director would have balked at that level of abstruseness but since unflinching is the middle name of Villeneuve he paints the whole scene like a Jackson Pollock painting albeit in x-ray black and white.
This year, in terms of solidly good thrillers, Hollywood has been the gift that kept giving. Mad Max: Fury Road, The Martian and now Sicario have been the most stunning movies to have released in 2015. Not a single shot looks wasted in all these propulsive movies. Sicario even more so, considering how it’s set in the real world. Emily Blunt got to show her acting chops even while Del Toro’s dangerously languorous gait was around. After Jessica Chastain in Zero Dark Thirty and Charlize Theron in Mad Max, I think this is one of the most challenging roles given to a Hollywood actress in recent times. The mix of anger and frustration on Blunt’s face after a botched one-night stand gave me goosebumps.
Donald Trump, thanks to his toxic cocktail of views on immigration, is tipped to be the Republican candidate for 2016 US Presidential elections. In order to woo the caucasian, conservative base, Trump has been making abhorrent remarks on the Mexicans living in the States and even said that, if elected, he’ll construct a wall on the border. It’s not rocket science to understand that this issue is the making of both the countries and now they are in this together. Villeneuve’s relentlessly watchable movie might not be making any impact at the Oscar 2016 because it’s nowhere near as predictably moving like those winners tend to be. But his job will still be well done considering that it might sway at least a few people from voting for Trump. That’s the highest purpose of art achieved, to rattle the status quo.
The movie ends on a cynical note where kids playing football go about their lives blithely even while killings are going on in another part of the town. The next President might want these kids to care more about their surroundings and Trump is not that person.
