Known for his dark, white-knuckled films that address the complexities of human morality, director Denis Villeneuve executes a pragmatic and newfangled drug thriller that evokes the masterpiece, Traffic. Villeneuve’s 2015 film, Sicario, portrays how the United States contends with the escalating war on drugs against Mexican, and in particular, Sonoran, cartels. The film endorses positive and negative archetypes of Spanish-speaking individuals. Additionally, Villeneuve utilizes cinematic tools such as color and light along with the language of sexual assault to portray a world in which the Western patriarchal system dominates the rules of the game and shapes the world in which we live today. This paper will interpret and analyze the creative
