So hellbent on being tough and gritty, it doesn’t realize how ridiculous it presents.  Dirty cops, ex-vets, drug addicts, hard asses, double dealers, all on the mean streets of Atlanta.  When these men commiserate, well, shit gets real, and words like “family” and “brother” and “trust” are bandied about.  Because, “Out here, there is no good and there is no bad. To survive out here, you’ve got to out monster the monster. Can you do that?”

Yeesh.

Add a hilarious Kate Winslet as a Russian mobster  with hair from Married to the Mob, a lazy crazy Woody Harrelson phoning in his standard quirky drunk cop with a nose for the perps, a cheezy industrial score, a bunch of young actors testing out their hard stares (Casey Affleck, Anthony Mackie, Aaron Paul, Norman Reedus), and a boring end that I suppose was meant to be anti-climactic, and you get this poser of a crime flick.

Plot-wise, the entire caper rests on having an innocent cop shot in the darkest and dankest housing project so his dirty cop partner can call in a “999”, whereupon, at least in Atlanta, every cop in the city’s 3300 square miles drives like a bat out of hell to the scene, and thus, we have a diversion, so other dirty cops can steal a case for the Russians that just happens to be housed in the Atlanta office of the Department of Homeland Security.

Got that?

This idiocy is made even more noticeable because when the “999” is called in, indeed, every cop lights out for the scene, Woody Harrelson leads the charge and almost kills dozens of civilians in the process in what is meant to be a bravura car chase scene.  But it is not a chase scene.  It is a race to get to a destination, a race made dumber by the fact that Harrelson is screaming at his partner “Do you know who was shot?” (Affleck was on scene and he is Harrelson’s kin).  And for what?  When Harrelson gets to the locale, there are already dozens of cops on the scene drinking coffee and showing vacation pics to each other, and Affleck looks relaxed, like he just had a backrub from Atlanta’s newest Tactical Massage Unit.  And why didn’t Harrelson’s partner call any of the dozens of cops on scene to ask who was shot?

Also, why do these jamokes actually have to kill an innocent cop instead of shooting some rounds and getting on the radio and just saying “999”?  Then, when every cop bugs out for the location, the dirty cop can just say, “My bad.  I thought he was shot.”   Hell, have the cholo in the housing projects who was contracted by the dirty cops to shoot the innocent cop and instigate the “999” just bonk the innocent cop on the head, shoot a round in the air, and then the dirty cop can call on his radio, “Hey, 999”, as the cop is, technically, down.  Or just have a shootout and get on the radio and have the cops screaming, “we are getting shot up in here.”  Will all of the cops in Atlanta just keep playing Candy Crush because they didn’t hear “999” but instead , “Shots fired.  At me!!!!”

And what is with this stupid “999”, anyway?  Is “999” the equivalent of “Candyman” and if you say that word three times in a mirror, cops jump in their cars and go berserk like bees to the queen?

Besides, Homeland Security ended up having its own SWAT team, who, apparently, were taking a collective bath when the caper began.

And of all the cops to shoot, why choose Affleck, who has previously demonstrated he’s bad-ass in a gunfight?

Not only is Affleck bad-ass, he’s also the Sherlock Holmes of the A.T.L.  He cracks the case because he checks the wallet of the cholo contracted to shoot him and Ay Caramba!  It has the address and time of the shooting (8th and Washington, 4 pm).  What is it with Latino gang members and a) their inability to remember a few easy things and b) their predilection for semi-cursive?  Affleck then goes to the dead cholo’s  neighborhood and asks the first Latino kid he sees what’s what, and wouldn’t you know, that kid just gives it out like candy.

Director John Hillcoats’ The Proposition and Lawless were similarly moody and slow, but I don’t recall them being stupid.  That distinction must be laid at the feet of first time writer Matt Cook.

Engrossing, often pulse-pounding, and armed with a realistic sensibility, Sicario tells the story of an FBI agent in the drug war (Emily Blunt) recruited by a U.S. government task force leader and its consultant (Josh Brolin and Benicio del Toro, respectively) to assist with an exfiltration of a drug lieutenant and then a targeting of a Mexican drug lord. As Blunt gets deeper into the mission, the motives of the players and other aims of the endeavor are revealed. Blunt is excellent as a hardened officer who struggles with the seeming futility of her job and the machinations around her. Who would have thought that the arch, bony fashion assistant in The Devil Wears Prada was capable of projecting such strength? But this is the third role where I’ve seen Blunt play a convincing, strong, physical woman (the others are Looper and Edge of Tomorrow).  By that, I mean that she doesn’t shed gender and its attributes, nor does she just merely ape a man in what is a male-dominated role, where she’s chucking dudes around because, hey, that’s equality! She has a scene of physicality where the director demonstrates not only Blunt’s own strength but its limitations when pitted against a strong man. Its’ authenticity melds perfectly with the film, gritty and direct and disinterested in symbol.

On the downside, while Blunt can convey heart and strength, she can’t create a character where one does not exist, and writer Taylor Sheridan’s first screenplay doesn’t really provide her one. There’s nothing that makes you claim or invest in her. The moody, sparse setting of the film and Blunt’s no-nonsense portrayal can only go so far. It’s a testament to the taut pacing of the picture that you don’t recognize its emptiness until afterwards. Still, a good watch.

Nicely done, but ultimately plagued by some clunkiness and a fair amount of inexplicable behavior by the couple (Rebecca Hall and Jason Bateman) who are terrorized by a stranger from Bateman’s past (Joel Edgerton). Otherwise, this is a classier Lakeview Terrace, Unlawful Entry, or Pacific Heights, movies about California rich people haunted by a weirdo, but with a reverse Gone Girl twist. A note on Bateman, normally a light, Ben Stilleresque comedian: he’s really good as a man trying to exorcise his worst instincts while continuing to profit from them.