I’m still pinching myself at the realization that we’re at a moment in time where Benicio del Toro is the lead of a Wes Anderson film. I would never have pictured Benicio being a great fit for Anderson’s rigidly designed simulations, but with The French Dispatch and The Phoenician Scheme, he’s proven to be amazingly adept at the hyper-literate emotional disconnect that is the trademark of Anderson’s acting style. Del Toro has long seemed more comfortable in roles that let his freak flag fly and give him the freedom to do whatever instinct comes to him. This is why it’s devilishly ironic that, for me, no recent film role of his has better used the juice that makes Del Toro such a phenomenal actor than Alejandro in Sicario, a character largely defined by his fiercely restricted emotional range.
Alejandro Is Nothing Like Del Toro’s Previous Signature Roles
For context, del Toro has spent the majority of his career in scene-stealing side roles where he plays characters that leave a mark on the film by imposing their outsized personality or worldview onto the story. First gaining notoriety as the mush-mouthed peacock Fenster in The Usual Suspects, Del Toro ensured that his star would rise by consistently being oddballs like the drugged-out Dr. Gonzo in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the immaculately dressed Franky Four Fingers in Snatch,or his full mainstream breakthrough as the morally embattled Javier Rodriguez in Traffic, which won him the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. Del Toro always knows how to make the most of limited screentime or a lack of meaty dialogue, able to bring unexpected levity and unpredictability through his haphazardly stylized delivery. While Alejandro is technically a supporting player in Sicario‘s story, since FBI agent Kate Macer (Emily Blunt) is the protagonist, nothing else about his character or del Toro’s performance has much in common with his previous highlights.
Benicio Del Toro Strips Alejandro Down To His Core
We are largely told nothing about Alejandro’s backstory or motivations when he becomes involved in Sicario‘s story of Macer’s involvement with a special Delta Force team that’s sent to capture the main heads of a drug cartel. Her only reason for trusting him or agreeing to work with him is that her superior, Matt (Josh Brolin), insists that the two have a history together and that his presence is necessary, even though he isn’t strictly a member of the US government. He refuses to share anything about himself besides vague hints that he’s had experience dealing with violent cartel matters before, and makes few if any efforts to put anybody at ease. The closest we can surmise about him is that he’s experienced great pain and trauma, as evidenced by one moment where he’s twitching and shaking while having a nightmare.
Those who know of his past refer to him as the “Ghost of Medellín,” and del Toro leans into that mythic status with a stony performance that’s chilling in its recessive stillness. Del Toro himself advocated for ramping up his mysterious aura by asking director Denis Villeneuve to remove much of Alejandro’s dialogue from Taylor Sheridan‘s script. Rather than relying on his old tricks and trying to grab the audience’s attention with gimmicky tough-guy theatrics, Del Toro simply carries all his knowledge of the character and makes it so that his mere presence is enough to shake and rattle those around him. When you’re the boss, you don’t have to tell people you’re the boss, and del Toro knows that if Alejandro were truly as threatening and feared as the film says he is, then he wouldn’t really have to do anything to convince others of that status. Much like Hannibal Lecter, it’s how everybody around Alejandro reacts to him and how long we have to wait to see him fully in his element that builds up his mystique and makes Del Toro’s performance seem so much scarier than it already is. By the time we get to the now-iconic dinner table climax where Alejandro finally meets his target, it’s like watching Clint Eastwood at the end of Unforgiven, a bedtime boogeyman come to terrifying life.
Benicio Del Toro Proves That There Are No Small Parts
One reason why it’s so chilling to see Benicio del Toro like this is that, on average, he’s a much goofier actor than we give him credit for. This is a guy who’d just done a Liberace-in-space getup in Guardians of the Galaxy, and who would later be the voice of a cartoon fox named Swiper in Dora and the Lost City of Gold, because hey, why not? For as much as he tends to be seen as a prototypical heavyweight actor, you’re still just as likely to see him do something tongue-in-cheek and breezy, so it’s ironic that his defining role in recent times is one with none of that quirkiness. What would seem to be shackles on his screen identity instead proved to enrich his fleshing out of what could be a stock brooding action hero if anybody else played him. I’m willing to bet that people’s thirst for multiple Sicario sequels is due in large part to how much they loved Benicio as this character, as he made a borderline-maniacally selfish killer into someone worthy of an uncommon empathy that is usually reserved for more franchise-friendly characters like John Wick (Keanu Reeves). There’s the tired cliché of “no small parts, only small actors,” but Benicio del Toro’s career has been devoted to proving that cliché is true for a reason, and so it’s actually fitting that Sicario would give him his most defining role since Traffic by seeming to give him so little to say, but so much to show.
Sicario is available to stream on Netflix in the U.S.
- Release Date
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September 17, 2015
- Runtime
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122 minutes
- Director
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Denis Villeneuve
- Producers
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Basil Iwanyk, Edward McDonnell, Ellen H. Schwartz, Molly Smith, Thad Luckinbill, Stacy Perskie
