[**1/2 stars / *****]
Sicario should have been titled: EPIC ANTICIPATION.
You wait for something big to happen, thanks to the terrific Jóhann Jóhannsson's background score, only for the promised drama flame out to insignificance.
The makers of this take on the Mexican drug trade can't figure out where to linger.
So it sluggishly flows from FBI agent Kate's (Emily Blunt, nicely done, badly sketched as a central character) point of view, giving us a mitigated view of proceedings, adding brutality, loss, and revenge, the latter as an unconvincing twist.
Josh Brolin and Benicio del Toro are competent, but apart from sluggish atmospherics, there is not much to salvage here.
One arresting part...
Picture a group of black SUV's moving relentlessly from the US to Mexico and back, with a prisoner in tow.
Then, amidst a traffic snarl, gun-wielders from either side of the law, draw their weapons and wait.
This is the only time, apart from the first five minutes, and the unexpected finale, that Sicario comes alive.
