Sicario

Return to the film that brought Denis Villeneuve (Dune, Blade Runner 2049) into the Hollywood mainstream with his take on the ambiguities of the war on drugs.

After raiding a Mexican cartel’s safe house, FBI agent Kate Macy (an intriguingly well-cast Blunt, Looper, Into The Woods) joins a secretive team tasked with eliminating the cartel’s bosses. Along with the cynically maverick Matt (Brolin, No Country For Old Men) and world-weary Alejandro (Del Toro), she realises that she’s involved in a very dirty crusade, the goal of which might not merely be to stem the flow of drugs into the USA.

Villeneuve, who threw some masterful twists at gasping audiences with his vigilante movie Prisoners, pulls more dazzling tricks here, abetted by several violent, stunningly orchestrated set pieces that underline the traffickers’ apparent invincibility.