Sicario is a 2015 American action thriller film directed by Denis Villeneuve, written by Taylor Sheridan in his screenwriting debut and starring Emily Blunt, Benicio del Toro, and Josh Brolin.

The film follows a principled FBI special agent who is enlisted by a government task force to bring down the leader of a powerful and brutal Mexican drug cartel.

In Chandler, Arizona, FBI special agents Kate Macer and Reggie Wayne lead a raid on a Sonora Cartel safe house, where they discover dozens of decaying corpses hidden in the walls.

Following the raid, Kate is recommended for and joins a joint task force overseen by CIA officer Matt Graver and the secretive Alejandro Gillick, a Mexican ex-prosecutor turned CIA-trained assassin.

The team, which includes Delta Force operators, Deputy US Marshals, and CIA personnel, travels to Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, to extradite Díaz's brother, Guillermo.

After finding financial evidence, Kate and Reggie want to start a legal case against Díaz but are ordered to stand down to avoid jeopardizing the operation.

Kate attempts to arrest Alejandro, but he shoots her twice in her Kevlar vest to subdue her, angrily telling her to never point a gun at him again, before driving away with Silvio at gunpoint.

On the U.S. side of the border, Kate confronts Matt, who explains the mission is part of a broader operation to revert the various drug cartels back to a single Colombian-run business that the U.S. can more easily control and work with.

The next day, Alejandro appears in Kate's apartment and forces her at gunpoint to sign a statement attesting that the entire operation was legal.

In Nogales, Silvio's widow watches her son's soccer game, which is briefly interrupted by the sound of distant gang machine-guns.

[11][12][13] Daniel Kaluuya, Maximiliano Hernández, and Jeffrey Donovan were then cast,[14][15][16] and Jóhann Jóhannsson was hired to compose the film's musical score in August 2014.

[20] Jóhann Jóhannsson was selected to write and compose the score for the film, making Sicario his second collaboration with director Denis Villeneuve after having worked together on Prisoners which was released in 2013.

The site's critical consensus reads: "Led by outstanding work from Emily Blunt and Benicio del Toro, Sicario is a taut, tightly wound thriller with much more on its mind than attention-getting set pieces.

"[35] Dan Jolin from Empire magazine gave the film 5 stars, calling it "a beautifully murky, hard-edged thriller.

He stated that although her character Kate Macer was implausible, Emily Blunt "brazens out any possible absurdity with great acting focus and front".

[38] Mark Kermode said, "What makes this work is that Emily Blunt is terrific, and Benicio del Toro has this eye-catching appearance as a riddle and an enigma... and that the film is very, very well directed.