Sicario (7/10)

by Tony Medley

Runtime 122 minutes.

Not for children.

This is an action-packed movie all right. But it’s convoluted in its meaning. Kate Macer (Emily Blunt) is an FBI agent and kidnap response team leader who is recruited to join a covert black-ops mission led by special agent Matt Graver (Josh Brolin) and a mysterious Colombian operative Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro)

Directed by Denis Villeneuve from a script by Taylor Sheridan, it’s difficult to follow because, according to Graver, they are just trying to stir things up so that someone will lead them to the real bad guy deep in Mexico. While the story is emotionally tense, it doesn’t make a lot of sense, frankly. And, like lots of thrillers, it asks the viewer to believe that the good guys are basically invulnerable and the bad guys are just there to die in hordes of bullets being sprayed at them while the good guys always avoid the killing shots, even though they are coming from packs of automatic weapons. The result of all this is that there really isn’t any tension in terms of our heroes ever being in any danger.

There is a lot of cold-blooded killing that many might find off-putting.