An American crime thriller, Sicario is sure to give you the chills and the thrills. Sicario means “hit man” in Mexican. The movie deals with a brief period of time in the career of Kate Macer, an FBI Agent. One day, during an FBI raid of suspected kidnappers in Arizona, Macer and her team, instead of finding the hostages, find dozens of bodies. While canvassing the area, in the garage, one of her colleagues finds a trap door and opens it, only to find it rigged with explosives, which explode and cause the death of two officers.
Clearly shaken by the surprising turn of events, Macer shows up for work the next day only to discover that her boss had recommended her for a special task force put together by an advisor for the Department of Defence, Matt Graver, who gives Macer a name to blame- Manuel Diaz, for all the barbaric activities happening in and around the area including the enormous drug trade that takes place across the borders.
Graver asks Macer to help them put a face to the name to which Macer begrudgingly agrees. The next morning, Macer meets Graver’s partner Alejandro Gillick and together they set off for Mexico to extradite one of Diaz’s men- his brother, Guillermo. On their way back to the United States, Graver’s team takes down all the people who try to save Guillermo.
Macer is taken aback by the happenings and tries to understand the situation but in vain. Later in the day, Macer and her partner Reggie Wayne threaten Graver by deciding to walk away from the mission if it wasn’t detailed as to what their job is. Situations appear to be changing and getting harder every passing moment as Macer struggles to fight her way past all the “classified” files and missions.
The movie has a gripping story with wonderful actors. The part of the movie which I liked best is how they portray the thoughts and frustrations of each character. Macer, being an FBI agent can access the tip of the ice berg of the entire classified data. She tries her best to build a case with what she has at hand but her decision gets vetoed by Graver.
Graver on the other hand, has so much to deal with and Macer’s constant questions and interventions keep annoying him. Graver has a crafty way of avoiding and side lining her questions and not giving her complete answers even though he knows her intentions.
Alejandro is the one person who you would think of as approachable throughout the movie but there are ghosts in his past that have to be exorcised and his thirst for revenge must be quenched. He is one person to whom the “not-everybody-is-what-you-think-they-are” phrase is totally applicable.
I personally think that Sicario is a very deserving movie with a splendid story line and an amazing camera work. All the actors complement each other’s performance and it is a well balanced drama with all the ingredients necessary for an Oscar nomination. Sicario had been nominated for 3 Academy awards- Best Cinematography, Best Original Score, Best Sound Editing but failed to win an Oscar.
April 5, 2016 at 6:01 PM
Failed to mention director Denis Villeneuve, he was the real star behind this movie. Unfortunately he got snubbed for Best director nomination. You could have mentioned more about the themes of the film,especially the very last scene of the film which is fantastic . The movie didn’t get any oscars because this movie is similar to movie called TRAFFIC.