Sicario: Day of the Soldado is not so much a sequel to 2015’s megahit Sicario that you must know what happened in the first one to appreciate the second as it is its standalone movie. The only thing you need to know to go into the 2018 movie fresh is that (spoiler) the drug war in Mexico has escalated to the point where the United States government is forced to use questionable tactics that force some of its operatives to question the morality of what they are doing and that the US is aided mystifying man with a unique set of skills but a checkered past named Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro – The Hunted, Traffic) whose family is killed after an order by a Mexican Cartel Kingpin named Carlos Reyes. That’s it. This man’s men kill Alejandro’s family, and he wants revenge. If you accidentally read that brief spoiler, shame on you for going at least three years without yet seeing the phenomenal Sicario. And just because I gave a brief spoiler doesn’t mean you shouldn’t check it out if you have not already.
The film is set somewhere shortly after the first. It was three years between the release of these two movies, and there’s no reason to think this isn’t the timeframe of events. We see a series of events early on to establish the dire situation. A man is caught on the Texas side of the US/Mexican border, and when a team of operatives corners him, he pulls out a detonator and blows himself up. We then are taken to Kansas City, where another suicide bomber blows himself up inside a grocery store, killing dozens. We are led to believe that there is a growing level of concern in the United States that terrorists are smuggling in through Mexico.
Josh Brolin (W., Milk) reprises his role as Matt Graver, a no-nonsense CIA Agent who adheres to the United States rules of engagement when dealing with domestic and international wars and believes in the adage that the messier, the better when the situation calls for it. Matt is summoned to the Department of Homeland Security to meet with, among others, Secretary of Defense James Riley (Matthew Modine – Wind, Pacific Heights) and Cynthia Foards (Catherine Keener – Capote, Being John Malkovich). A decision has been made that the United States will secretly stage a war between two of the top Mexican Cartels, headed by Reyes, the man responsible for the killing of Alejandro’s wife and children. Specifically, the mission is to kidnap Reyes’s youngest daughter, 16-year-old Isabel (Isabela Moner – Transformers: The Last Knight), and pin the kidnapping on the rival Matamoras Cartel.
In essence, it’s a great plan to get two rival cartels to turn their attention on one another, but (and this is just me) I don’t know if it would divert all of the resources of either cartel if there is money coming in from the middle east to get these terrorists across the border. But, again, this is just me, and I certainly do not understand Mexican drug cartels. Aiding Matt is his ability to secure whatever strategic weapons and other equipment he needs. Also, he can connect with Alejandro, and it doesn’t take much convincing to pull this enigmatic lawyer-turned-assassin into the fold after informing him of the plan to hurt the man responsible for killing his family with very few restrictions in place for what he can and can’t do.
But, of course, everything goes differently than planned. And this is really where the movie gets its legs. If there’s one thing we’ve learned from movies, television shows, books, and the news, it is that the Mexican/US Border (especially in Texas) is a place where you do not want to be. The only constant is crime (drugs, murder, torture). The first movie didn’t shy away from that, and its sequel doesn’t either. But at the heart of the action and in the middle of all the violence is a human story told from many different angles. I won’t say much more about the story, but instead, I will focus on other aspects of this movie that I loved.
First is the tone. It’s dark. It’s creepy. It feels all too real when you wish there were nothing less real in this world. We must go to great lengths to protect ourselves (not necessarily the United States, but “we” in whatever sense of the word you would like to use it) from the world’s evils. Sometimes, doing what we need to do to protect ourselves involves going to great lengths to hurt those trying to hurt us. Nothing is glorifying in Sicario 2. It’s a grim reality of what our country must do to protect its borders and all of the evil within them.
The second is the score. The music in the first Sicario was such an integral point of the storytelling. The subtle transition from soft to loud allows the tension to build up in absolutely fascinating ways. It’s riveting, and whoever arranged the music for these two movies should arrange music for all action movies.
The third is the storytelling. It’s tough to screw up anything written by Taylor Sheridan. Not even 50 years old, the man who wrote the screenplays for Sicario, Hell or High Water, Wind River, and the Paramount television series Yellowstone and Mayor of Kingstown in the last four years. He’s on a streak where he turns almost everything into instant gold, and this film is no different. Stefano Sollima (Suburra) does well with his first major directorial effort, sequencing his story in a way that is smart, coherent, and logical in a setting that is anything but. The twists and turns along the way are done with the precision of a veteran like Denis Villeneuve (Arrival, Blade Runner 2049), who directed the first movie. Last but certainly not least is the acting.
Brolin and Del Toro have never been better as allies/enemies, depending on what side of the border they are on and the current order of the United States government. It is fascinating to see Brolin, as patriotic of an American as there is, switch from one gear to the next in his efforts to accomplish his mission. And to watch him be countered by Del Toro, with motives that sometimes coincide with Brolin’s character and sometimes do not, is action film acting at its best. With Emily Blunt, who was incredible in Sicario, not returning for the sequel, we needed a lot for it to live up to its predecessor, and we received that.
The 65% Rotten Tomatoes score (with a 67% audience score) is disappointing. This movie is as good of a sequel as just about anything I’ve seen, short of The Dark Knight in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy. Sicario: Day of the Soldado was that good and is a film that anybody who has seen the first one should receive a viewing. I don’t know if I’d go as far as to say that it needs to be seen in the theatre, though I was pleased that this was where I watched my viewing of it. It’s a big-budget action movie that translates to your television screen as well as it would seeing it in a cinema.
Plot 8/10
Character Development 9/10
Character Chemistry 9/10
Acting 10/10
Screenplay 9.5/10
Directing 9.5/10
Cinematography 10/10
Sound 10/10
Hook and Reel 10/10
Universal Relevance 9/10
94%
A
Movies You Might Like If You Liked This Movie
- Traffic
- No Country for Old Men
- The Town
- Blade Runner 2049
- Wind River