Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Olga Kuznetsova
[REGNUM] The crime chronicles of Mexico, and along with it the American borderland, sometimes resemble an action movie - and the figures of the Western film industry, not being fools, take advantage of this, dissecting local plots in every possible way.
It turns out so-so. Sure, there are hits like "Queen of the South," "El Chapo," or "Narcos" plus "Narcos: Mexico," but they all focus more on the biography of some legendary person (usually a criminal one) and explain with varying degrees of obsession that drug trafficking does not lead to anything good.
Sometimes the authors have an attempt to tell a story about how a criminal path is not chosen without reason and that there are many more people in the chain of drug trafficking interests than it seems from the outside. But nothing more.
There are exceptions, such as Steven Soderbergh's Traffic, which showcases a whole series of very human stories, as well as connections to big politics, social problems and eternal philosophical questions.
It is "Traffic" that can be considered one of the first attempts to seriously talk about the problem of drug crime, to analyze the fight against it and not slide into the framework of a cheap action movie.
And thanks to this attempt, fifteen years later, the film Sicario was born, directed by Denis Villeneuve and written by Taylor Sheridan - a film that does not impress the viewer with its knowledge of technical details or facts about the cartels, but rather reliably reflects the picture of the balance of power and the eternal violence in this sphere.
TEN YEARS LATER
Now we have to rewatch Sicario in a new reality: US President Donald Trump has opened a “new era” in the fight against cartels. At least in words.
The number of special operations in the border area has increased. The hum of patrol helicopters over the Mexican state of Sinaloa is heard more often, drones buzz like flies over a corpse. Machine gun fire still often enlivens the outskirts of southern cities. And mass graves in the walls of houses or in the desert are replenished with new plastic bags with sinister contents.
Open threats are being made: Trump's team is promising economic sanctions against neighboring countries, demanding that they stop the flow of drugs and stop "poisoning Americans."
The Mexican president has responded by loudly demanding that American weapons be stopped from being sold to the cartels, and by recommending that the US public be curbed from consuming the same weapons that created demand for the cartels in Sicario.
Several major cartels and a couple of gangs have been declared terrorist organizations by the US government (and Canada and Argentina). The National Intelligence Service, the CIA and the FBI are predicting purges of both those who once ruined the lives of members of Trump's team and those who were involved in some unpleasant machinations. To demonstrate, so to speak, the healing of the ranks.
And it seems that the world that Sheridan and Villeneuve portray is no longer relevant – that is, the world where the American government and the cartels work together to prevent a hypothetical “greater evil.” The bright side, represented by Emily Blunt’s heroine, an honest FBI agent, has in reality won.
But is this really true?
NOT JUST A 'CARTEL STORY'
In one of his interviews, Taylor Sheridan admitted that he wanted to create not just a “story about cartels.” The goal was to show the American frontier and all its nightmares, and at the same time to show that “cartel” is just a name behind which stands an ineradicable and beneficial phenomenon.
As the Sinaloa cartel drug lord Ismail Zambada, who is in American custody, said : My arrest will not change anything. The cartel is a many-headed hydra that exists only because it benefits those in power.
They chop off the heads of some, and others take their place. The flow of drugs continues to reach the consumers, and the money for this activity continues to fall into the right pockets.
And so it is now: while verbally threatening Mexico, Trump’s team is simultaneously holding regular meetings dedicated to joint operations between the American and Mexican authorities.
At the latter, Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with members of the security cabinet sent by President Claudia Sheinbaum to improve "cross-border coordination."
They plan to share intelligence and conduct joint investigations, allowing the United States to quickly apprehend criminals on its territory and Mexico to do the same on its own.
Mexico, meanwhile, while promising to amend its constitution to prevent the United States from arresting Mexican citizens on their home soil and conducting secret investigations, has allowed a delegation of military advisers into its territory to train individual units of the local army for a month.
Along the way, literally “without declaring war,” on February 27, despite the requests of all lawyers, almost all the prototypes of the main characters of “Narcos: Mexico” were extradited to the United States.
Among them are one of the leaders of the long-defunct Guadalajara cartel, Rafael Caro Quintero ; the Treviño brothers from Los Zetas, leaders famous for their brutality ; the middle ranks of the now-defunct Juarez cartel; members of the Golfo, Northeast, La Familia Michoacana and other cartels captured several years ago. In total, they say, 29 people.
They have been left in detention centers in different parts of the United States and have already given regional authorities reason to discuss the possibility of applying the death penalty to them.
Some call this extradition the loudest in modern history, others shout about a sensitive blow to drug trafficking. And somehow they overlook the fact that the transferred persons are only second-tier leaders or drug world pensioners who have long since retired from real affairs. Their heirs are left free.
GOALS AND MOTIVES
One of the main characters of "Sicario", the mysterious Alejandro with a tragic past played by Benicio del Toro, works for the American government mostly with one goal: to get the opportunity to take revenge on the one who killed his family. And, naturally, to avoid punishment. In exchange, he is ready to provide all his "skills and abilities", which were clearly not acquired during his work in the prosecutor's office.
As it turns out, in Sheridan's original version of the script, the story began with Alejandro giving a heartfelt speech about the nature of violence. The hero then proceeded to explain his motives to Blunt's character, and in the end, having found the hated drug lord, he does not kill his children, but allows his enemy to make a sinister choice (the outcome of which turns out to be unimportant).
Later, director Villeneuve and Benicio del Toro himself made changes to the script, making Alejandro mysterious, silent and brutally dealing with the entire family of his enemy in the finale. In essence, having passed his point of no return and accepted the laws of the harsh world of drug dealers and fighters against them.
It is Alejandro who gently, almost mercifully, breaks Blunt's heroine, forcing her to accept a new paradigm and stop fighting. Or maybe he doesn't break her? He compares her to his little daughter, drowned in acid by a drug lord, and explains to her - albeit at gunpoint - the rules of the game.
In fact, the first person for the film who explains something to her about what is happening. And the special services employee, like a little girl, swallows her tears and refuses to continue the suicidal struggle.
She, an FBI agent from the kidnapping unit, is not needed here, because in this story no one is going to save anyone. She herself was invited to legalize some operations and, in fact, was used for "state" purposes, including sometimes as bait.
Interestingly, the actress was invited to the project after Denis Villeneuve saw her in the role of Queen Victoria, an example of the conservative values of the 19th century and the “moral standard of the era.”
As for the reality and extradition of 29 people, at least one of them already gives an idea of the approximate benefit to the American government.
Rafael Caro Quintero is set to handcuff DEA agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena, who he tortured and killed in 1985, during a new trial. The move is cinematic, but it also hints at other aspects of the story.
Trump's potential purges of the FBI and CIA need at least a few triggers. The extradition of Agent Camarena's killer has revived the conversation that the cartel was merely the perpetrator in this case, and that the CIA was the main beneficiary of the murder. Camarena learned something - something about the drug world and the US government. Something that doesn't last long.
And Rafael Caro Quintero's testimony could be extremely inconvenient for a number of representatives of American law enforcement agencies. Who, if we are to be honest, in 1985 lived by the same laws as those shown in the film "Sicario". And now, for the sake of the cause, they may well pay for it, as Camarena did.
THE CAUSE OF THE TROUBLES HAS NOT BEEN ELIMINATED
When Villeneuve's film hit the big screen, the then mayor of Ciudad Juarez criticized how creepy it made the Mexican border town look. And he invited everyone to visit to prove that things had changed.
Much has changed since 2015, of course. But before former US President Joe Biden's visit last year, US troops were sent to the border to conduct a clean-up. Well, just to be on the safe side.
In addition, international organizations are loudly trumpeting the growth in the amount of psychoactive drugs consumed due to high demand among the planet's population, which, in the series of wars and cataclysms of recent years, is ready to accept a lot in attempts at escapism.
That is, the demand for drugs - the main cause of troubles in "Sicario" - has not gone away. And that means that those who control the saturation of American citizens with drug poison have not gone away and are unlikely to go away in the near future.
In this regard, anything can be said on either side of the border now - threats, tariffs, announcements about sending troops. The frontier as a grey zone, where official restrictions have always been very conditional, will continue to live by its own laws.
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