In Chandler, Arizona, FBI Special Agent Kate Macer leads a raid on a Sonora Cartel safe house where her team discovers dozens of decaying corpses hidden in the walls.
Following the raid, Kate is recommended for and joins a Joint Task Force overseen by CIA operative Matt Graver and the secretive Alejandro Gillick. Their mission is to flush out and apprehend Sonora lieutenant Manuel Díaz, currently operating hidden in the US.
After a violent gun battle during an extradition mission, Kate learns that task force's real objective is to disrupt Díaz's drug operations so he will lead them to his boss, drug lord Fausto Alarcón. Not only this, but it soon becomes clear that any and all tactics and methods will be used to achieve this goal, including illegal ones. Kate grows more and more uncomfortable with the situation, but what is there that she can do about it?
Sicario is well acted by a talented cast, beautifully shot, and has very well choreographed action scenes.
And it loathed it. It joins High Plains Drifter on my list of films I actively resent having watched. It's a thoroughly repellent movie that takes as its thesis "the only way to defeat evil is to ally yourself with greater evil".
Sicario is well acted by a talented cast, beautifully shot, and has very well choreographed action scenes.
And it loathed it. It joins High Plains Drifter on my list of films I actively resent having watched. It's a thoroughly repellent movie that takes as its thesis "the only way to defeat evil is to ally yourself with greater evil".
I'm sure that some might argue for some other interpretation, perhaps that it's trying to depict the way such methods harm the people who use them. But that's simply not supported by the film's actual content. Instead, every effort to follow the regulations is shown to be counter-productive, while Alejandro Gillick is a murderous, torture-using thug who is repeatedly shown to the most effective member of the team. The script actively endorses the horrors he inflicts on his victims.
And let's be clear, those victims include Kate Macer. She is repeatedly physically assaulted, endangered and gaslit by Gillick and Graver, the latter of whom eventually makes it clear that she was brought on board solely as their patsy. This behaviour culminates in a direct threat to murder Kate and stage it as a suicide if she does not help them cover up their illegal activities. Over the course of the movie they tear apart Kate's life, her career and her mental health; and then they ditch her and the movie ends.
I don't care how technically well made this film is; it's misanthropic, nihilistic, torture-endorsing garbage.
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