Raise your hand if you’re excited about the prospect of another narco film coming out of Hollywood. Anyone? No one? Well, that’s understandable, given the glut of narco-themed films and television series storming our screens like so many Marvel superheroes, but you gotta admit, some of them actually end up being kind of good. Sure enough, Hollywood is about to let loose yet another meditation on moral ambiguity and the trans-border drug war upon the global public in the form of Sicario. But will it be one of the good ones, or just another dime-a-dozen sensationalist throwaway?
Well, for starters, Sicario features another brooding, mysterious performance by badass Boricua Benicio del Toro, so give ’em a gold star for casting. Also, its French-Canadian director Denis Villeneuve has already picked up a couple of Oscar nods with his previous features, including his 2013 English-language debut, Prisoners, which won for best cinematography. He has also teamed up with Oscar-winning Director of Photography Roger Deakins again – also known as one of the best cinematographers in the world – so suffice it to say that the project is off to a promising start.
The story follows a naive FBI agent played by Emily Blunt, who gets sucked into a shady black op by a supposed State Department contractor. Blunt’s Kate Macer quickly finds herself in over her head as she joins a morally suspect shadow man played by del Toro in a cross-border hunt for a big-time cartel boss. Villeneuve’s personal vision is writ large across the trailer, which showcases an impeccable visual sense to accompany the film’s all-star cast. Whether or not the plot will actually do justice to the complexity of the drug war is yet to be seen, but we have to admit the slow-burning suspense of the two-and-a-half minute trailer is pretty effin’ intense.
Sicario will open in select theaters on September 18 and nationwide on October 2.
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