‘Sicario” certainly knows how to make an entrance.
The movie opens with a SWAT truck crashing through the front wall of a drug lord’s house, prompting a chaotic gunfight. Before the audience has even gotten its heart rate under control, a sickening discovery is made: Forty-two bodies have been hidden behind the drywall, each one with a plastic bag covering its decomposing head.
And that’s before a bomb, rigged as a booby trap, rips off a man’s arm.
Is this a horror movie or an art-house morality tale? The reputation of director Denis Villeneuve — the man behind “Incendies,” “Prisoners” and “Enemy” — suggests that it’s the latter. But the distinction won’t make your nightmares any less hideous.
The leader of that unfortunate FBI tactical team is Kate Macer (Emily Blunt). A by-the-book agent based in Arizona, she’s frustrated with losing the war on drugs, which inspires her to volunteer for a mysterious interagency task force. The head of that team, Matt (Josh Brolin), dresses like a surfer and refuses to share many details of their mission with Kate, other than the fact that they’re heading to San Antonio.