After recently watching his latest sci-fi epic (collectively a rewatch of Dune: Part One and a couple of watches of Dune: Part Two) I thought now was a good time to head back to the first film from Denis Villeneuve that I became particularly aware of but hadn’t yet seen, 2015 crime thriller, Sicario.
While all the other films I’d seen of Villeneuve’s had, to one degree or other, been science fiction I was intrigued to see how he handled a different genre and from the off here it’s clear he treats them all the same, as stories to be told in the best way he and his team can.
While his pacing can feel methodical at times, and does here, he wastes no time dropping us into this world which, while theoretically closer to home than Los Angeles in 2049 or Arrakis in 10191, is in all practical terms just as alien with a group of FBI agents and police in Arizona uncovering a truly horrifying drug related crime.
The leader of the FBI team on that case, Kate Macey (Emily Blunt), is then recruited to a mysterious task force focussing on the cartel responsible for the previous seen crimes, but she soon gets caught up in the intrigue that surrounds this.
This could all, very easily, become rather run off the mill procedural crime drama but, if I say it starts where the likes of Breaking Bad tail off and get squeamish, you might get an idea of what we’re dealing with.
Blunt is terrific in this from the start, not only entirely convincing covering up her English accent, but embodying the troubled face of black and white law and order in a world increasingly made up of shades of grey, where agencies supposedly working on the side of ‘good’ employ tactics, if not as bad as those they are hunting, then not far off.
Throughout Daniel Kaluuya, as her FBI partner Reggie, acts as a kind of representative for the ‘real’ world while Josh Brolin gives another terrific performance as the apparent man from the Department Of Justice, Matt Graver, heading up the operation and very much keeping the aforementioned ‘shades of grey’ shifting right to the film’s conclusion.
While the antagonist in the basic plot may be drug lord Fausto Alarcón (Julio César Cedillo) it is Benicio De Toro’s mysterious Alejandro Gillick that is Kate’s real opposite as his purpose, origin and role in what we are seeing gradually reveals itself.
With these four stand out performances acting as the foundation Villeneuve and cinematographer Roger Deakins go out of their way to make this all look fantastic.
Despite the sometimes slightly slower pacing (and in this case that’s not a criticism as it gives the film’s ideas room to breath) it never seems to stop moving, almost fizzing off the screen whether what we are seeing is a brutally visceral ‘action’ (for wont of a better word) sequence or a broad scene setting landscape – and it’s clear to see Villeneuve building up to some of what he did in Dune.
Along with this the music, from Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson, does sonically what Deakins’ does visually, making it a truly all enveloping cinematic experience in the way surprisingly few films manage.
Laced through all of this are ideas that pop up time and again in Villeneuve’s work, exploring ideas around cultural imperialism (of a sort), questionable motives from the powers that be, and how and where our sense of self might exist in this broader context (it’s easy to see comparisons between Kate here, Louise in Arrival, K in Blade Runner 2049 and Paul in Dune).
This all makes Sicario an exceptional piece of work that wraps big ideas and astonishing visuals and music in a genre movie package that feels like it pushes what can be done with film to its limits.
Tommy Girard 