Sicario: Day of the Soldado (2018)

Directed by: Stefano Sollima | 122 minutes | action, crime | Actors: Benicio Del Toro, Josh Brolin, Isabela Moner, Jeffrey Donovan, Catherine Keener, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Matthew Modine, Shea Whigham, Elijah Rodriguez, Howard Ferguson Jr., David Castañeda, Jacqueline Torres, Raoul Max Trujillo, Bruno Bichir, Jake Picking

With the nerve-racking ‘Sicario’, Denis Villeneuve delivered one of the best action thrillers of 2015. Through the eyes of an outsider played by Emily Blunt, we got to see the extremely grim and violent world of the Mexican drug cartels and the equally shadowy and corrupt American military units that try to fight them. Already a month after the release of ‘Sicario’, plans were made for a second film. Villeneuve was busy in the intervening period with the sci-fi feats ‘Arrival’ (2016) and ‘Blade Runner 2049’ (2017) and had no time to take the director’s seat again. His place was taken by Stefano Sollima, the Italian best known for directing the mafia series ‘Romanzo Criminale’ and ‘Gomorrah’ and the gangster film ‘Suburra’ (2015). Blunt did not return in ‘Sicario: Day of the Soldado’ (2018), as the ‘sequel’ to ‘Sicario’ is officially called. According to screenwriter Taylor Sheridan, who also wrote the first part, Blunt’s character Kate Macer served as a ‘moral compass’, and he wanted to make a film in which the viewer has to find his own moral compass.

Fortunately, the two male protagonists, Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Toro, do return. In ‘Day of the Soldado’ the drug trade from the first part has been exchanged for people smuggling: much more immoral, but many times more lucrative. Sheridan taps into current events by citing President Trump’s hobbyhorse of ‘closed borders’ and ‘zero tolerance’; you never know who you will bring into your country. They could just as well be (suicide) terrorists. Moreover, it is the bosses of the Mexican crime cartels who determine who can and who cannot cross the border. Refugee crises provide enough personal drama, but in ‘Day of the Soldado’ that plays a minor role: the focus is on how the US can tackle this problem. Matt Graver (Josh Brolin), the tough-as-nails CIA agent who specializes in this kind of dirty job, is called in to pay back the Mexican mafiosi in the same way: no rules this time, anyone who threatens national security – even if that happens on foreign territory – must be eliminated.

His plan is to pit the various cartels against each other so that they can take each other out. That saves the US dirty hands again. He enlists the unpredictable hit man Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro) to kidnap Isabel (Isabele Moner), the 12-year-old daughter of drug kingpin Carlos Reyes, and leave everyone under the impression that a rival gang is responsible for the kidnapping. Even more ruthless than Graver, Alejandro still has a bone to pick with Reyes and his gang and so the girl becomes a pawn in the deadly chess game that unfolds. Because of course Graves’ plan turns out not to be watertight and the death toll is rising rapidly.

Leave it to Taylor Sheridan to create a lawless society. The American screenwriter, director and actor has made his trademark of ‘modern westerns’ such as ‘Hell or High Water’ (2016) and ‘Wind River’ (2017) in which he mercilessly scrutinizes the anarchic tumult in border regions. They are all dark crime films, in which twenty-first-century outlaws try to make justice prevail where the (American) government fails. The fact that the story in ‘Day of the Soldado’, certainly in the second half, sometimes leaves a little too much room for coincidences and the plot is therefore slightly less tightly put together than ‘Sicario’, does not detract from the tension and morale. dilemmas faced by the characters. Even without the mood makers of ‘Sicario’ – director of photography Roger Deakins and composer Jóhann Jóhannson, who died suddenly in February 2018 – the film manages to build up a nerve-wracking and constantly threatening atmosphere that keeps the viewer glued to the tube. Thanks also to a more than decent Brolin, the excellent Moner and especially Del Toro, who gets more space to also show Alejandro’s human side. The rock-hard ‘hitman’ from ‘Sicario’ turns out to have a heart and now that he is saddled with the young Isabel, he is confronted more than he would like with his own demons. Del Toro knows how to handle these complex characters.

‘Day of the Soldado’ is not a sequel in the traditional sense of the word; it’s a story in itself, centered around the characters from ‘Sicario’. The makers see this film as the beginning of a trilogy, which is reflected in the film’s many loose ends that offer opportunities to be explored further in subsequent parts. Compared to ‘Sicario’, ‘Day of the Soldado’ offers more of the same, but not because the story stands alone and because Sollima has a different, less subtle approach than Villeneuve. The breathtaking scenes that made that film memorable, such as the one in which Kate Macer goes to Juarez to get one of the top executives of a drug cartel out of prison, are not seen here and the perspective of the outsider, with whom the audience can sympathize, becomes missed. Sheridan’s layered screenplay, the excellent acting and the penetrating atmosphere that ‘Day of the Soldado’ manages to evoke, fortunately compensate for this to a large extent, so that ‘Day of the Soldado’ has also become a thrilling crime thriller that will take you from the first to the last. the last minute on the edge of your seat. Not as brilliant as ‘Sicario’, but well worth it.