History Film / Sicario

Kate, wishing to avenge the deaths of two of her fellow officers that that the drug lord was apparently responsible for, jumps at the call, but as the task force digs deeper into the cartels, their methods become more and more questionable, and Kate begins to wonder whose side the task force is really on -- and whether she has gotten in over her head.

* BoobyTrap: [[spoiler:The Chandler, Arizona raid leads to the team finding corpses in the walls inside the house. Naturally, the team becomes curious at what horrors the shed outside the house contains, but such investigation leads to triggering an explosion that blows up two police officers.]]

* JumpScare: The sound of [[spoiler:Alejandro [[KillEmAll swiftly executing Alarcon's wife and kids]]]] will have you flinching and/or jumping the same way it had [[spoiler:Alarcon]], especially considering how ''dead silent'' the scene was beforehand.

** Kate's a badass, but is overpowered in two fights. In the first, [[spoiler:she's very drunk and knocked off balance. In the second, even after she gives a good punch to Matt, she's just been shot twice in the chest (saved by a bulletproof vest, but still winded and likely heavily bruised, if not with cracked ribs) and after the first hit, the larger and uninjured Matt easily gets her in a disabling grapple.]]

* SWATTeam: FBI Agents Kate and Reggie lead a SWAT Team to the Chandler, Arizona safehouse raid at the beginning of the movie.

* YouRemindMeOfX: Alejandro tells Kate that she reminds him of someone who meant a lot to him. [[spoiler:At the end, he reveals Kate [[DamnedByFaintPraise reminds him of his daughter]]. Yes, a baby in a barrel of acid.]]

* MoleInCharge: [[spoiler: The objective is to put Alejandro in charge of a cartel and thus restore the drugs trade to a measure of control.]]

* TheReveal: [[spoiler: The CIA's plan is to put Alejandro as head of a cartel and establish a measure of control in the drug trade. The sheer demand and size of the drugs trade mean the war on drugs can never really end.]]

* KnifeNut: The team leader for the Delta operators uses a knife prominently during the tunnel raid. Not only do we get a tense reveal of him drawing his knife and slinking into the shadows, but he uses it to kill two cartel thugs and we see the grisly aftermath through Alejandro's thermal goggles. This lets them get deeper into the tunnels, and he leads the team into the battle with knife in one hand and rifle in the other.

* KnifeNut: The team leader for the Delta operators uses a knife prominently during the tunnel raid. Not only do we get a tense reveal of him drawing his knife and slinking into the shadows, but he uses it to kill two cartel thugs and we see the grisly aftermath through Alejandro's thermal goggles. The Delta leader seems barely fazed by this, leading the team into the battle with knife in one hand and rifle in the other.

* NeverMyFault: Fausto Alarcon refuses to accept any real responsibility for what he did to Alejandro, instead blaming the world they live in and giving him a 'it was NothingPersonal' explanation.

* SpiritualSuccessor:
** Arguably this to ''Film/Traffic2000''. Both movies are about the War on Drugs, take place near the border, have multiple intersecting storylines, exist in a CrapsackWorld, end with no real resolution to the questions raised, have extensive bilingual dialogue and feature Benicio Del Toro.
** Also to John le Carré's ''The Mission Song'', in which a skilled but naïve protagonist is exploited by brutal and amoral people in the service of Realpolitik.

** Arguably this to ''Film/{{Traffic}}''. Both movies are about the War on Drugs, take place near the border, have multiple intersecting storylines, exist in a CrapsackWorld, end with no real resolution to the questions raised, have extensive bilingual dialogue and feature Benicio Del Toro.

* LoopholeAbuse: [[spoiler:[[CowboyCop Matt]], who is actually a [[CIAEvilFBIGood CIA]] spook, cannot operate on American soil... unless his team is working in conjunction with a domestic agency. He really only needs Kate in his team to abuse that loophole.]]

''Sicario'' is a 2015 American thriller film directed by Creator/DenisVilleneuve from a screenplay written by Taylor Sheridan. It stars Creator/EmilyBlunt, Creator/BenicioDelToro, Creator/JoshBrolin, and Creator/VictorGarber.