Sicario

This relentlessly visceral drug trade thriller pulls no punches in its grim depiction of the cross-border traffic between Mexico and the States.

French-Canadian director Denis Villeneuve who two years ago made his international mark with the with the kidnap drama Prisoners, handles the suspense and the action with dexterity and breakneck velocity.

Emily Blunt takes the role of Kate Macer, an FBI field agent plunged in the powerful world of a drugs cartel as well as trying to make her way in the testeroned ranks of her colleagues. She delineates perfectly the emotional conflicts of a woman working with violence and corruption on a daily basis - and more than holds her own.

The opening sequence in which rows of rotting corpses are found in a home in Arizona belonging to the cartel sets the tone for the helter skelter ride to follow in which Villeneuve sustains the knife-edge tension without a blip.

Nobody is who they seem to be, least of all Josh Brolin who suggests that he may be a defence contractor although Kate and her partner (Daniel Kaluuya) believes he may be from the CIA.

Also emerging from the shadows is Benicio Del Toro as Alejandro, an enigmatic figure who is the sicario of the title - in other words a hit man whom you never where he is going to turn up next or on whose side he will be.

Although the violence is wince-inducing it is never gratuitous in the context of this particular world, where human beings are completely dispensible.