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"&lt;p&gt;In Spanish, &amp;quot;sicario&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;hitman.&amp;quot; In film terms, &lt;em&gt;Sicario &lt;/em&gt;is sensational, the most gripping and tension-packed spin through America&amp;apos;s covert War on Drugs since Steven Soderbergh&amp;apos;s &lt;em&gt;Traffic &lt;/em&gt;15 years ago. French-Canadian director Denis Villeneuve (&lt;em&gt;Prisoners, Incendies&lt;/em&gt;), working from a dense, devastating script by &lt;em&gt;Sons of Anarchy&lt;/em&gt; actor Taylor Sheridan, is out to shatter your nerves. And does he ever.&lt;/p&gt;\r\n&lt;wm:embed type=\"related\"&gt;&lt;/wm:embed&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;wm:embed type=\"inset\" id=\"1\"&gt;&lt;/wm:embed&gt;&lt;/p&gt;\r\n&lt;p&gt;Warning: Hang on in the early stages while you suss out intrigues that rival &lt;em&gt;Game of Thrones.&lt;/em&gt; The audience surrogate is definitely FBI field agent Kate Macer, played by Emily Blunt in a powerhouse performance that ranks with the year&amp;apos;s best. Blunt proved she could kick ass in &lt;em&gt;Edge of Tomorrow,&lt;/em&gt; in which co-star Tom Cruise looked like a wuss by comparison. In&lt;em&gt; Sicario,&lt;/em&gt; Kate is damn near a woman alone.&lt;/p&gt;\r\n&lt;p&gt;We first meet her in Arizona, in a hideout run by a Mexican drug cartel, with decomposing corpses stuffed in the walls. Nothing throws Kate till she&amp;apos;s basically ordered to volunteer for an agency-merging task force that pits one drug lord (Bernardo Saracino) against another (Julio C&amp;#xE9;sar Cedillo).&lt;/p&gt;\r\n&lt;p&gt;Confused? Just soak it up, which is the advice Kate gets from operations chief Matt Graver (Josh Brolin, smartass and stellar), a laid-back manipulator in sandals who claims to be working a defense contract but has the aura of CIA. His associate Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro) is an ex-Mexican-prosecutor-turned-assassin. Does Alejandro have a personal agenda? Look in his eyes. Del Toro, who won an Oscar for &lt;em&gt;Traffic,&lt;/em&gt; is tremendous again here, radiating a smoldering cool that throws the sexually unflappable Kate off her game.&lt;/p&gt;\r\n&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Sicario&lt;/em&gt; is a setup for scalding action in a world where right and wrong are no longer absolutes. As Kate tries to stand her moral ground while the ground keeps shifting, Villeneuve stages one gut-wrenching scene after another, set to a jittery, jangling score by J&amp;#xF3;han J&amp;#xF3;hannsson. And kudos to cinematographer Roger Deakins: His aerial shots of a white-knuckle border crossing contrast vividly with a breathless chase through drug tunnels, and he achieves visual miracles. Still, it&amp;apos;s on Blunt&amp;apos;s expressive face that &lt;em&gt;Sicario&lt;/em&gt; writes its darkest poetry. Prepare to be haunted for a good long time.&lt;/p&gt;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/reviews/sicario-20150917>