Sicario: Interviews with Emily Blunt, Benecio Del Toro and Josh Brolin

Sicario is an intense new film directed by Quebec filmmaker Denis Villeneuve (Prisoners) that stars Emily Blunt, Josh Brolin and Benecio Del Toro.

Blunt plays idealistic FBI agent Kate Macer who  and after rising through the ranks of her male-dominated profession,  receives a top assignment. Recruited by mysterious government official Matt Graver (Josh Brolin), Kate joins a task force for the escalating war against drugs. Led by the intense and shadowy Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro), the team travels back-and-forth across the U.S.-Mexican border, using one cartel boss (Bernardo Saracino) to flush out a bigger one (Julio Cesar Cedillo).

With a menacing tone that holds through from start to finish, Sicario is a movie defined by highly charged sequences, starting with its first one, when officer Kate  leads a raid on a safe house in the Arizona desert only to find the place rigged with bombs.

The film does not let up and the film’s big set piece is a nighttime raid on a border tunnel, and is told partly in night-vision and a grayscale kind of thermal vision, adding an extra dose of surreality to a mission that’s already a harrowing descent into a tunnel in the middle of the desert.

It's already been announced that Lionsgate is developing a sequel to Sicario that will center on Benecio Del Toro's mysterious hitman.

The project is being overseen by Taylor Sheridan, the writer of the acclaimed thriller. Director Denis Villeneuve is also involved, although it’s early in the process and it’s not clear if he would come on board to direct. Black Label Media, which backed “Sicario,” is co-financing the development of a follow-up.

Check out my interviews below with the films three lead stars, Emily Blunt, Josh Brolin and Benecio Del Toro.