Sicario: Day of the Soldado

photo courtesy of qatarcinemas.com

SPOILER-FREE REVIEW

     Benicio del Toro and Josh Brolin return in Sicario: Day of the Soldado, the sequel to Denis Villeneuve’s stunning crime thriller from 2015. Italian director Stefano Sollima takes over the reins for Day of the Soldado, which finds agents Alejandro Gillick (Del Toro) and Matt Graver (Brolin) responding to escalating violence from Mexican drug cartels. The two undertake a mission to disrupt the balance within the cartels, but it doesn’t take long for things to go awry.

2 good things.

     The original Sicario thrives on tense action sequences, and Day of the Soldado nearly matches its predecessor on that count. What sets the franchise apart, in terms of action, is not how big or how brash or how gory the conflicts are—but how painfully, searingly frightening they are. The characters, however well-equipped and resourceful they may be, always seem to be in the most vulnerable place, in a highly disadvantageous state, and matched with unpredictable enemies. That frenetic feeling, juxtaposed with relatively steady camerawork and noteworthy cinematography, makes these scenes memorable.

photo courtesy of traileraddict.com

     Day of the Soldado also features some outstanding performances from its core cast. Del Toro made waves in the 2015 film with his stormy, glowering turn, and he brings all of that energy back for the sequel. Brolin, too, impresses as cowboy-to-the-max Matt Graver (though, truth be told, it sort of feels like Graver is just a version of Brolin himself). Beyond those two, the performances are uneven—Catherine Keener is certainly not at her best—but Del Toro and Brolin are more than capable of carrying the bulk of action.

2 bad things.

     Day of the Soldado works much better if you haven’t seen the original Sicario; it’s an unfavorable comparison. The main reason for this discrepancy is that Soldado seems to be largely ignorant—or uninterested—in what sets Sicario apart: namely, a human center, a spirit, a soul. Behind all of the 2015 film’s well-choreographed action, excellent pacing, and underlying sense of horror, there are real, complex human emotions in play and at stake. But here, without Emily Blunt’s character to serve as the moral compass (or, perhaps more accurately, as a stand-in for the audience), Day of the Soldado is too callous and too cruel to be nearly as insightful.  

photo courtesy of rollingstone.com

     From a narrative-structural standpoint, Day of the Soldado has fairly obvious weaknesses. The script lags at several points, and the story is unevenly and ineffectively paced. This, again, contrasts the original film, which features the kind streamlined pacing that demonstrates confident and thoughtful storytelling.

2 interesting things.

     Del Toro’s character gets quite the facelift in Day of the Soldado. Whereas Sicario presents Gillick as a nuanced, often sinister character whose occasional heroism has more to do with personal advancement than any sense of nobility, Soldado abruptly positions him as the driving moral force of the film. Only in one scene, at the end, does Gillick approach the same kind of unpredictable moral ambivalence.

photo courtesy of teaser-trailer.com

     And, oddly enough, Soldado takes the Terminator 2 approach to sequels, placing a child (Isabela Moner) at the forefront of the plot. For a world as grim as the one which the Sicario series presents, it’s a striking decision. Sure, Isabela’s inclusion probably has more to do with the absence of Blunt’s Kate Macer than anything else, but it makes for some of the movie’s most striking moments.

TRAILER

Watch the trailer here.