One of my most anticipated movies of the fall is Sicario, a ripped-from-the-headlines thriller from Denis Villeneuve, the incendiary director behind Prisoners and Enemy. Emily Blunt stars as an idealistic FBI agent who gets caught up in an operation to catch a drug lord, only to become ensnared in a violent race for survival once she crosses the border from Tucson to Mexico with two Delta Force rangers. Villeneuve has yet to disappoint, and I’m loving everything I’ve seen from this movie so far.
Ahead of its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, Sicario has unveiled an evocative new poster along with the official synopsis. Neither really sheds any further light on the plot of the thriller, but expect the pic to grapple with big questions of morality and true justice. Benicio del Toro, who plays a hitman assisting Blunt’s agent and Brolin’s task force leader in their mission, recently spoke about the film and explained, “It’s a movie about choices.” The actor added:
It’s tough to say whether any character in ‘Sicario’ is truly good or bad. Do the means justify the ends? What happens when go into a situation where you want to kill one guy and you kill 20 innocent people? You got the bad guy, but at what cost?
After a summer of more brainless thriller fare like San Andreas, Terminator Genisys, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Hitman: Agent 47, a hard-hitting story like del Toro describes is exactly what the doctor orders.
Sicario opens September 18.
In Mexico, SICARIO means hitman.
In the lawless border area stretching between the U.S. and Mexico, an idealistic FBI agent [Emily Blunt] is enlisted by an elite government task force official [Josh Brolin] to aid in the escalating war against drugs.
Led by an enigmatic consultant with a questionable past [Benicio Del Toro], the team sets out on a clandestine journey forcing Kate to question everything that she believes in order to survive.
