'Sicario' boasts superior production values and an impressive cast, but the mindless screenplay could have been written by Skinny Pete and Badger, the wasted drug dealers from 'Breaking Bad'. The plot trudges from one tired cliche to the next as two cynical CIA officers manipulate a naive female FBI agent in order to entrap the head honcho of a Mexican cartel.
The film's action sequences are set up by the dopey decisions of supposedly elite crime-fighters and criminal masterminds. The most half-witted of these assumes helicopters don't exist as a conspicuous CIA convoy of black SUVs enters Mexico to collect a cartel member from prison, and returns through a gridlocked border crossing. In the interludes between scenes of violence and CIA torture, the actors deliver one-dimensional performances as they agonize over such necessities. This fable of felons on both sides of the law possesses neither credibility nor tension because the characters are all stereotypes. It eventually arrives at a climax enabled by the unlikely event of a cartel big-shot traveling without minders. Whoever conceived and produced this formulaic drivel has a fine understanding of action-thriller movie fans, and how easily they're satisfied with the cinematic equivalent of junk food.
The film's action sequences are set up by the dopey decisions of supposedly elite crime-fighters and criminal masterminds. The most half-witted of these assumes helicopters don't exist as a conspicuous CIA convoy of black SUVs enters Mexico to collect a cartel member from prison, and returns through a gridlocked border crossing. In the interludes between scenes of violence and CIA torture, the actors deliver one-dimensional performances as they agonize over such necessities. This fable of felons on both sides of the law possesses neither credibility nor tension because the characters are all stereotypes. It eventually arrives at a climax enabled by the unlikely event of a cartel big-shot traveling without minders. Whoever conceived and produced this formulaic drivel has a fine understanding of action-thriller movie fans, and how easily they're satisfied with the cinematic equivalent of junk food.