Sicario

The movie opens with Agent Kate Mercer, a up and coming straight laced FBI agent, finding a horde corpses when raiding  a den of kidnappers. The ensuing explosion points at something more than a kidnapping den. She is then drafted into a CIA / DoD task force investigating the event. Part of this team is Alejandro Gillick (Benicio Del Toro) whose identity and allegiance all seem very murky. A taunt action thriller that never leaves you bored but there are times you wish Emily Blunt's character was played by a man and treated the same way. Somehow I feel that it would have been more effective. But that is just a minor nitpick in a well crafted thriller.

Rating: * * +

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The Informant

Mark Whitacre was a high flying executive at Archer Daniels Midland, when he decides to blow the whistle on the company's nefarious price fixing of lysine, an additive used in the livestock industry. He teams up with the FBI and walks around wearing a wire and surreptitiously filming secret meetings. But the pressure of leading a double life starts to show as his character starts to fray at the edges resulting in tragicomic situations. Matt Damon shines in this role and you are left in an enjoyable muddle of trying to figure out reality from Whitacre's imagination.

Rating: * * *
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