Sicario was an action film courtesy of Denis Villenueve that
distinguished itself with some great cinematography, sound design that really
let your ears ring with the gunfire, and a great performance from Benicio del
Toro and Emily Blunt. A few years later comes the next instalment, Day of the
Soldado, bringing back del Toro, some of the supporting cast…and not much else.
Not always the best sign, but other than that, how does this one hold up?
The storyline is…uneven. It starts out with a sequence of
jihadi terror attacks, which sets off a plan by US government special forces to
disrupt their entries into the US by Mexico through triggering a war with the
cartels. The terrorism angle however just sort of disappears after this, and
they might as well could’ve had the US decide to get rid of the cartels for, well,
being the friggin’ cartels. It feels a bit like something stuck in for
relevance, when it left me feeling a bit wanting.
In any case, Josh Brolin plays the special forces commander
that recruits mercenary Del Toro to aid in kidnapping a cartel daughter.
Things, of course, don’t go that simple, and Del Toro ends up fighting for his
life as it turns out that everyone around him is kind of an asshole. Some
people have commentated on the supposed politics on this film, and while I
usually prefer not to get into that, I’ll just say that no party here ends up
looking particularly clean.
Director Stefano Somilla replicates Villenueve’s style of wide
landscape shots and panning vistas that help you take in the action and scenery
nicely, and despite the not completely satisfying plot it does look nice. Del
Toro does elevate things with his cool as ice grit and swagger, and there’s a
fair amount of tension in the last act with curveballs and treachery around. However…the
ending isn’t very satisfying, and the entire plot of the movie in all honesty
doesn’t end up feeling very resolved. I guess it’s supposed to be setting up a
sequel, but it feels more like the first and second acts.
Supposedly the Sicario movies were meant to be more of an
anthology, and I could definitely enjoy that. Apart from Del Toro this one
doesn’t have that much in common with the last one, so maybe that’s what
they’re attempting here, but I can’t tell.
All in all, come for Del Toro and some nice visceral action,
but if a nice well-composed plot is what you want, this one isn’t likely to
satisfy. If you haven’t seen either, go back to the first Sicario and go from
there.
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