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are now reframed within the context of the Mexican/US drug war and shown to be good and right.
Okay - spoilers.
It's interesting because we've got to very different places having watched the same film. It seems to me that it's much more a critique of America's less-than-innocent role in the violence attached to the war on drugs (think https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATF_gunwalking_scandal).
With the exception of the two FBI agents, all of the Americans - and people working with the Americans - are pretty horrible. The US is shown to be (attempting to) prop up the cartel of its choice, and in the process, uses and excuses the same tactics used by the narcos they're fighting (the reasons may be pragmatic, but they are never shown to be "good and right" - on the contrary, they are shown to result in the deaths and suffering of innocent, as well as bad, people). I think this is made quite clear in the end, but maybe you disagree.
Del Toro is pissed because his wife and daughter were murdered. He hunts down the Mexican cartel boss responsible. At the dinner table this boss claims a) it was impersonal and b) they learned the techniques from "the people who sent you here." What does Del Toro do? Say it was personal for him, and kill the dude and his family (which is what the Americans wanted him to do). However, he also, a) "impersonally" killed the cop minutes earlier, leaving a kid without a father. And b) does all of this with aid, finance, technology, support, presumably training, of the US. Del Toro is no different. But he's only the actor, not the agent (he's the Sicario, working for the US).
The point being, the Americans are entirely tangled up in that moral, and legal, shit-storm. The protagonist recognizes this (that the actions of her fellow Americans were not "good and right") and the only thing that stops her from going public is, literally, a gun held to her head.
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I don't essentially disagree with some of your points.
For me it boils down not to the fact that the US is shown to be complicit in the senseless and immoral deaths of many people, but that its stance is beyond good and evil and lays with the strong, the wolves.
This is the "right of might" I speak of. My saying that it is "good and right" is only within what can be regarded as such within that context.
The weak, then, that are regarded as lesser and in a perverted sense in this regard, immoral and without character, are such people as the law abiding FBI agent whose whimpering, simpering ineptitude in the face of being stalked by "wolves" while clinging to the illusion of the rule of law (though these people purport to be on her side, and the side of justice. It's just that their justice occupies ethical high ground in the alternate universe of the spooks).
Also included in this are her partner whose well meaning and good intentions are impotent in the face of the "just let it happen" as a special forces soldier stands on his chest with a gun to his head as the head wolf roughs up the lamb a little bit to properly "advise her" (Blunt's character).We see things differently, yes, but I think some thought might be placed in the fact that a sequel has been commisioned starring Del Toro's Sicario. It will apparently be a vehicle solely for him. Placing such emphasis on the very deliverer of death and mayhem is evidence to my mind of the further mythologising of very worst traits in human character produced by the effects of war.
On a simple level you could just say that the most flawed, dark characters make for the most interesting stories but I think that this sort of film operates on different levels and not only one so basic.
Saying that I would actually watch that sequel.Perhaps finally I can make the argument that film presents two worldviews: that the two approaches by governmental agencies in the film, one; strict, morally grounded, following the letter of the law by individuals with conscience and humanity is trounced, being ineffective and a complete failure in the face of the amoral warrior wolves who will employ any method to achieve their goals.
And they do.
t_w
It's a very good film, yes. But it's essentially a more subtle and seemingly complex justification for the projection of US military industrial complex power than the film I previously mentioned.
There are strong parallels, thematically, between Sicario and Zero Dark Thirty; the latter of which is literally a US MIC funded production.
The methods which the US MIC has been castigated for involving "enhanced interrogation techniques," disdain for legal frameworks nationally and internationally, dehumanisation of those designated "other", illegal intelligence operations conducted both in the US and without, etc, etc, are now reframed within the context of the Mexican/US drug war and shown to be good and right.
Or the right of might.
Whether the director's nationality has any bearing or not (I think not) the film hews to a particular framing of the projection of military force preponderant in Hollywood.
As for Del Toro melting; I think it's amazing that he's getting squintier than ever. Soon they'll have a full time assistant on the set to pry his eyelids open so that he can read the film script. :-D