Whether or not the end justifies the means has always been a foggy issue. Especially when the means involve activities that cross the line of what is strictly legal, or worse, what is unconscionably cruel. And to what extent can Draconian law enforcement be seen to ratchet up the bad guys’ reprisals? The viciousness of those who control the illicit drug trade between Mexico and the US is incomprehensible to us in our cloistered corner of the world. That successfully dealing with the cartels might necessitate the abandonment of morality and decency would offend our bourgeois sensibilities – but things are different in the real world. As an outsider who does things by the book, Officer Macer (Emily Blunt) is seconded to a covert operations crew and is immediately outraged by the methods employed by her new associates, Graver (Josh Brolin) and the shady Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro). But she is unable, or unwilling, to do anything about it. She is a strange character – entirely passive and ineffective, like a fly on the wall. This is a confronting movie insofar as it demands that you make a judgment that you would rather not have to think about. The glossy veneer of our civilisation blinds us to the uncompromising and often murderous mechanics that underpin it – we’d rather not be bothered by it while we’re watching The Block with our takeaway Thai.
The unholy thrill that Kathryn Bigelow presented us with in Zero Dark Thirty is similarly at play here as Alejandro, whose motivation is all too easy to condone, relentlessly tracks down a cartel ‘jefe’ (boss). You want him to succeed because you’re only human and the need for vengeance is one of the deepest, most transferable of our instincts. If there are dirty deeds being done on our behalf – as there surely are – should we express high-minded outrage? Or turn a blind eye? Denis Villeneuve’s intense, fatalistic film might occasionally exhibit an over-willingness to show blood-splattered walls and carcasses, but, as Graver tells Macer, with cold certainty, ‘this is the future’.
