By Jonathan Klotz
| Published
Before Yellowstone dominated American television and helped Taylor Sheridan forge an empire, he was an actor; one of those that would show up in bit parts, before Sons of Anarchy gave him his largest role yet, as Deputy David Hale. We now know that Sheridan’s true talent was to be found behind the camera, especially since the first feature film he wrote has gone on to become one of the greatest crime thrillers of the last decade and a genre-defining hit. Sicario, a gritty tale of the CIA, FBI, and the Cartels that’s back in Netflix’s Top 10, helped put Taylor Sheridan on the map and its success was the first step to his current historic success.
Sicario Would Be A Hit In Any Decade
Sicario hit theaters in 2015, but a large part of the film’s appeal is that it would have been a hit in 1995, or even 2025 if it debuted directly on Netflix. Starring Emily Blunt as FBI Agent Kate Macer and Daniel Kaluuya as her partner Reggie Wayne, the pair are assigned to work on a joint task force, overseen by Josh Brolin’s CIA Agent Matt Grover. The clandestine mission centers on Benicio del Toro’s Alejandro Gillick, a formerly law-abiding prosecutor out for revenge against the Cartels, and as with any good crime thriller, there’s plenty of betrayals and secrets to go around before the last bullet casing hits the ground.
A future hallmark of Sheridan’s writing gets its start in Sicario, and it, along with Dune director Denis Villenuve’s ability to capture the perfect moment, sets the film apart from Netflix’s typical crop of original crime thriller films, with even the side characters appearing to be fully fleshed out parts of the world. Jon Bernthal, back as Marvel’s Punisher, plays a Phoenix cop named Ted, while Victor Garber, the Arrowverse’s Professor Stein aka Firestorm, is an FBI boss, and both roles could be nothing additions that instead, add plenty of texture to the film and make it feel like part of a living, breathing world. There’s nothing truly original about the story but it’s how it feels when you’re watching it play out that sticks with you and helps to explain the lasting appeal of Sheridan’s work.
The Start Of A Crime Franchise
It’s the grittiness of Sicario that sticks with you longer after Netflix autoplay the next film, which should be Triple Frontier or Rebel Ridge if you want something as close as possible to the award-winning Cartel thriller. Critics at the time praised the acting of the film, which is not typically the high point of any crime thriller, with Blunt and del Toro singled out as giving unexpectedly great performances in roles that could have easily descended into cliche. Audiences responded as well with the film bringing in $84.9 million, and launching a sequel, Sicario: Day of the Soldado, also written by Taylor Sheridan, that, while a good movie, lacks the rawness of the original and replaces it with more twists, turns, and gunfights.
A third film, Sicario: Capos is in the works with Mission: Impossible franchise director Christopher McQuarrie attached, and though the world has changed since 2015, there’s always going to be an appetite for films about drugs and crime. It’s why Sicario is again a hit on Netflix, and in another 10 years when a new generation discovers Sheridan’s first feature film, it will be a hit for its third straight decade. Not one crime thriller in the last 10 years has come close to Sicario’s pitch-perfect blend of tone, cinematography, style, and substance, and there’s a great chance that in the next 10 years, nothing else will be able to match the perfect Cartel film.
Sicario is now streaming on Netflix.
