Sicario was billed to me as a great movie to watch.
I was expecting something along the lines of Crash, silence of the lambs mexican style or essentially a confronting movie with blood, gore, police fights and telling chases.
Instead were left with a slow plot instead.
The start of the movie delivered exactly what I expected. A confronting Gang hiding people in walls and life being cheap. Perfect, we see clearly why Emily would go on a mission south. Now we find Emily and a Mexican police escort posse 15 cars long go into the dangerous zone with corpses hanging by the side of the road warding them off. Good start.
Then the traffic jam! wow this convoy is stuck in traffic and they see 2 gang cars in the distance also stuck in traffic. How convenient, so they wonder over, gang cars pull guns on them, get shot and they get a crumb of information.... right I bought that plot leap!
Now we have this 'shock' that US agencies go across the border to arrest and torture bad guys who appear to be quite bad. No redeeming features of them, just gang thugs being pushed to confess. Emily and her partner push to their boss wanting more details and answers...flagging their procedural concerns there. It's illuminating but sicario fails to ramp up the tension. It's officers asking their boss "are we ok to do this"..."yes".
It doesn't bring out the objections clear enough. The biggest problem being the FBI involved are 'in the dark', not the torture nor their reaction to the torture.
So Emily gets drunk, her partner introduces her to a "good man" they get it on. When she realises he was carrying a bank note wrap identical to the wrap used in this mornings bust at the bank. After playing an almost helpless white female, a man comes to her rescue and gets this corrupt cop off her.
Again how convenient. Lets just have a QF make another plot leap. Now they interrogate the corrupt cop and find out the location of the other corrupt cops. The only redeeming factor here is the corrupt cop being told that it's his family in protective custody or their addresses posted on Reddit.
Then there is the tunnel scene which is meant to impress us with IR technology. Emily confronts Del Toro after he finds another corrupt cop "silvio" loading money in the trunk. Emily goes to stop him and Del Toro shoots her in her armor.
Del toro then proceeds to use the corrupt cop to get into the gang mansion and kill everyone there. Including the gang leaders family as they sit to eat a meal. It is 100% unclear if Emily knows any of this or if Del Toro is just immune to bullets.
Also this is the death of Silvio, the father of the mexican kid playing soccer. the Kid being bossed around to get his bratty father stuff while he lives the life of the family father god. I had no idea why this was added. You make a heartfelt father and kill him I would understand as this provides connection to the brown people being blown apart, tortured and killed during the movie. You make a flawed and real father then you get a real connection. Instead you have made a demanding father that does nothing with his kid who the kid feels ambivalent about his passing in circumstances unknown. what was the point!
The real crunch, Del toro this assassin is the one who confronts Emily to fill in the paperwork greenlighting the whole operation and to say it followed procedure. Right, your assassin paid to take out another drug cartel is the one ensuring the paperwork is signed! After wanting to see this for a few years and hearing a lot of hype, this is a fizza.
12 out of 20 found this helpful.
Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
Tell Your Friends