Few movies have ever surprised and pleased me as much as Sicario did when I saw it, because I basically thought it would be the typical overflowing action and meaningless movie where the only objective of the story was to entertain for a few minutes regardless of the message behind the plot, I couldn't be more wrong. Sicario, yes, is a film that includes many elements of action, but beyond that includes a tension and a drama so recurrent that traps us in the middle of a highly critical and stressful story where we do not really know what is going to happen, a story complemented with social nuances that highlight every police and investigative element that the film uses to give life to the incessant search for a drug trafficker, yes, Sicario deals with how a police group does all kinds of maneuvers to take down the leader of a drug cartel.
Sicario's plot places us in the middle of a money laundering investigation by a not very experienced agent who ends up disembarking in a narco-trafficking hunt where agents from different security agencies are involved to get by all means to bring down part of the criminal empire of a bloodthirsty capo who has taken part of the territory near the Mexican border, but who above all has a kind of blood debt with one of the "contractors" who is helping in the investigation, yes, in this apparent routine investigation into money laundering and drug trafficking we see the intervention of a very strange Colombian character, a man who seems to know a lot about drug trafficking and about the different ways capos use to move their money, drugs and employees. The intervention of this Colombian contractor is very important because he is the one who basically takes charge of the operations, pushing aside the agent who started all the investigation, releasing her to the background and above all hiding all kinds of critical information from her.
The plot is developed under an atmosphere of investigation with suspense where we see the different movements and mechanisms of search for information that the Colombian contractor uses to get closer and closer to get the way to find the location of the capo they want to make fall. Throughout this investigation we see a lot of scenes that let us explore the evil game that drug traffickers and corrupt police officers play with people trying to find a better life crossing the Mexican border which gives a fantastic dramatic twist to the movie, because it adds that deep social contrast that few action movies get. The film shows us in detail the different ways that narcos use to pass their drugs and dirty money to the U.S. through needy people who serve as simple pack mules.
Beyond the social and critical element that this film introduces by exploring the diverse situations that take place on the U.S.-Mexico border, the film never falls into that tedious intensity that seems to lengthen, in this film what we see is a countless number of situations delicately orchestrated to finally make sense, find and kill a bloodthirsty Mexican capo that terrorizes many people.
This is a film that I liked very much because of the way in which manage to enhance a history of drug trafficking by adding very intense and emotional social elements that make us see the true behavior of these criminal organizations when carrying out their operations. Another thing that I found fantastic is the whole atmosphere of suspense and tension that the director managed to create through deep dialogues with closed shots where we see the interaction of characters that although partners seem to have different objectives, not to mention that each scene is perfectly complemented with a soundtrack that gives that extra touch to the performances making them stand out more and turning many of the simplest situations into memorable moments. So far this is one of Denis Villeneuve's best works on a creative level because it combines many plot, visual and sound elements to create a police opera prima.
