Sicario begins with Kate Macer and her kidnap-response squad infiltrating a home in Chandler, Arizona in hopes of saving hostages.
Gunfire ensues and the team finds there are no hostages but bodies in the walls of the home. These bodies are the victims of the drug cartel that plague the area.
After a debriefing, Kate joins Matt's team comprised of a man named Alejandro and various different D.E.A, F.B.I and SWAT agents. He offers her an opportunity to help get those responsible for the crimes in Arizona. The plan is to bring cartel bigwig, Manuel Diaz, out in the open exposed by moving his brother from the Mexican jail onto U.S soil.
Kate has always done things by the book but Matt and Alejandro's techniques do not bode well with her. After being used as bait in one of the banks housing Diaz's money, she soon finds that there is nothing legal about what they are doing when they refuse to place Manuel Diaz on trial although having enough evidence to do so.
Kate witnesses Alejandro kidnapping one of the dirty officers at the Mexican end of the tunnel. She attempts to arrest him but he shoots her in her bulletproof vest - subduing her enough to get away with the officer, Silvio.
Silvio takes Alejandro to Diaz. Kate finally understands that the plan was never to apprehend Diaz but to disrupt the drug operation to a certain degree that Diaz would be summoned back to Mexico by his boss and drug lord, Fausto Alarcon.
Alejandro confronts Diaz and has him take him to Alarcon's estate.
Alarcon is eating with his family in the yard. Alejandro approaches them with a gun raised.
Alejandro's obsession with finding Alarcon stems from the fact he was a prosecutor back in Juarez until Alarcon ordered the murder of his wife and daughter. Alejandro shoots Alarcon's wife and two sons explaining that even though it was business it was all personal to him.
More is revealed through Kate and Matt's conversation as this entire mission was to return to a time when there was one single cartel such as Medellin. This gave the US more control over the drug trade.
Alejandro appears at Kate's apartment with the intent to have her sign the statement that the operation was completely legal. As he leaves she steps onto her balcony with her gun raised at him but she cannot find herself to shoot him. The movie ends with the scene over a soccer field where children are playing. They abruptly stop for a moment when a series of gunshots are heard in the background. The children go back to playing the game and the gunshots are still occurring in the background.
F.B.I agent Kate Macer runs a kidnap-response squad. In the opening scene, she and her colleague Reggie lead an infiltration on a house in Chandler, Arizona where there are reportedly hostages being held. Unfortunately, all they find are bodies stacked in the walls of the home. These bodies are victims of the drug cartels that plague the lives of many in the area. Kate long tried but failed to confront the source of the cartel until she meets Matt in a debriefing. He offers her an opportunity to find justice for those responsible for the crime in Arizona. She moves onto a team comprised of CIA, D.E.A and SWAT agents. The plan is to bring cartel bigwig, Manuel Diaz, out in the open by transporting his brother from a Mexican jail onto U.S. soil. She has always done things by the book – but in this new world in order to get the result she wants, she may need to turn a blind eye.
Denis Villeneuve raises serious questions regarding cycles of violence, utilizing subject matter that we see prevalent today. He shoots over landscapes that look so ambiguous that for a moment you question whether this is in Mexico, the US or other parts of the world. He sets scenes in such dark light, using a thermal blur of monochrome light to place you on the ground with the actors. Villeneuve doesn’t offer a solution to the problem at the end of the movie but rather illustrates how the currency of life is devalued and how war can and does dehumanizes us.
Words: Dark, Tense, Introspective, Commentary, Forbidding
Thesis: F.B.I agent Kate Macer is sent out to bring cartel bigwig, Manuel Diaz, to justice but in order to do so must compromise the legality of it all.
Explored 6 different fonts (Raleway, Futura, Helvetica, Din, Glass, and Cinzen) with 4 different weights (Light, Italic, Medium, Bold).
Looking at how the title might contrast on both a black and white background.
I settled on Raleway because of how the different weights contrasted well with the videos I collected for composition.
The text will appear and disappear off the screen by altering opacity. The main message of the film is "in order to catch a sheep you need a wolf, and in order to catch a wolf you need a wolf." I wanted wolf italicized matching sicario and hitman italicized in the previous image so that there was a connection between the slides.
