CIA
“Sicario” (2015) is a dark tale of an attempt to stem the tide of drugs and violence pouring in here from down there. Ultimately, complete drug-flow stoppage won’t happen via CIA, FBI, and paramilitary teams, but through 12-step addiction programs and personal and spiritual cultivation. But that’s a different movie.Still, it’s interesting to pick up the drug-war rock and see what’s crawling around under it. That’s exactly what “Sicario” does. “Sicario” is Steven Soderbergh’s “Traffic” on steroids. It’s got some disturbing imagery you won’t be able to unsee; it’s full of very bad hombres.
FBI
The cast of “Sicario” is killer. As door-kicker No. 1 on an FBI drug bust, agent Kate Macer (British actress Emily Blunt) roll-ducks a shotgun blast and puts the shooter down, whereupon her partner (Daniel Kaluuya) discovers a plastic bag peeking through the shotgunned hole in the drywall behind her.
The building turns out to be a stunningly high body-count morgue; all the corpses hidden behind the drywall in suburban Arizona. The octopus-like arms of the cartels have grown long.
Macer’s a no-nonsense, by-the-book, morally intact FBI field agent whose ringing idealism puts her squarely in the function of stand-in for the audience. Emily Blunt got this role because of her immensely believable, perfect-American-accented macho warrior work with Tom Cruise in “Edge of Tomorrow,” where her soulful blue eyes, powerful jawline, and cleft chin, and the fact that she was heretofore a Shakespearean kind of girly-girl thespian, gave her a magnetic je ne sais quoi.
Task Force Audition
Interviews ensue in the wake of the Arizona mayhem. Someone likes Kate’s style. We’re not sure who, but it looks like a fantasy football type inter-agency task force of tier one operators is being cherry picked to follow up on the discovery of the Arizona-house morgue. Macer’s the best kidnapping specialist, but it’s not clear exactly why she’s wanted on the team.The main auditioner is Matt Graver (Josh Brolin), a rules-and-formalities eschewing, beach-sandals-wearing, gum-snapping bro with perfect hair and a killer smile. He’s a “Defense Department contractor” (sure he is). Talk about your snake and lady-charmer. Brolin was born to play this kind of slick, boyishly charming manly-man.
Macer is expertly schmoozed, flattered, and ultimately bamboozled into believing she’s needed on this op because she’s so awesome. She’s still naively seeing bad guys versus law enforcement through the traditionally more black-and-white legal lens of the FBI, but Graver is clearly very, very gray. We highly suspect her idealism is in for a rude awakening.
And right about now, someone who might be the titular “sicario” shows up. That would be Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro). “Sicario” is Spanish slang for hitman. But Alejandro claims to be a “former Mexican prosecutor” (sure he is). Whoever he is, he carries deadly gravitas.
Ciudad Juárez
Eventually, the crack agent team (no pun intended) travels down to Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, to snare one minor cartel boss who’s been linked to the Arizona incident, in order to smoke out an even bigger one. Juárez, Mexico—you don’t want to go there. Nightmarish images hang off bridges in those parts.Which brings us to the film’s top set piece: Once they collar the small-fry boss and start heading back across the border, accompanied by a substantial motorcade of Federales, a massive traffic jam sets like cement; the Americans are suddenly sitting ducks.
Escalation
There are tunnels, illegals, and shady deals, with Macer running around trying to figure it all out, and grinning Graver acting like a camp counselor: “Stick around, learn something.”
And as the film throttles up, mystery man Alejandro’s story takes center stage. He’s an independent operative looking for revenge. The CIA benefits from turning him loose, since (to continue the canine metaphors) he’s a bloodhound crossed with a pit bull, looking to settle a score. With whom, we’re not sure, but you can bet it’s someone the CIA wants dead.
Always unpredictable and unnerving, Del Toro’s Alejandro is riveting and complex. He shows us the humanity in the predator, the nightmares haunting his sleep, and the tenderness for the vulnerable female agent who reminds him of someone very close, taken away too soon.
Wolves
The ominous statement by Alejandro is that the world has become a place where only wolves can survive. The cartels are the wolves; the government operators who used to be sheepdogs are now also often wolves. And the wolves take advantage of the sheep and chickens.When the chickens stop pecking at cartel chicken feed, the drug war wolves will become a non-issue. “Just say no.” That'll definitely get the job done (sure it will). But seriously, when it comes to war—Vietnam War, drug war, whatever (war is war)—the last monologue of “Platoon” says it best: “I think now, looking back, we did not fight the enemy; we fought ourselves. And the enemy was in us.”
