Keswick Film Festival

Synopsis

We finish our season with a bang - big budget, big stars, big action. Canadian born Denis Villeneuve, who brought us the brilliant Oscar nominated Incendies in 2010, has moved over to challenge for the Michael Mann crown with his latest - "a blisteringly intense drug-trade thriller that combines expert action and suspense with another uneasy inquiry into the emotional consequences of violence" - Scott Foundas, Variety

Essentially Sicario follows an unlikely trio over the border between the USA and Mexico into the war on drugs. Emily Blunt plays Kate Macy, an FBI agent out of her depth in a team cobbled together to take on the top drug suppliers. She is partnered with Matt Graver (Josh Brolin), a sandal-wearing mystery man who claims to work for the Defense Department, and Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro), the 'Sicario' of the title...the 'hitman'. What follows is the usual interagency mess-up following mixed agendas... and morals.

The actors all get high praise from the critics with Blunt especially finding a new role for herself - "Blunt's performance has an edge of steel. She brings off a mix of confidence, bewilderment and vulnerability, which functions very well against the alpha male characters higher up the chain of command" - Peter Bradshaw, Guardian.

Behind it all is the director's mastery: Foundas again -"Villeneuve stages one extraordinary suspense set piece after another, starting with an epic traffic jam at the border that ensnares the Americans just as they are heading back home... Using no special tricks - just the sharp, colour-saturated compositions of cinematographer Roger Deakins; the airtight cutting of editor Joe Walker; and the subtly menacing score of composer Johan Johannsson - Villeneuve creates a sequence as nail-biting as any Fast and the Furious car chase, except that here all the cars are standing perfectly still". Sounds good to us...and good enough to get him a nomination for Palme D'Or at Cannes.