Sicario: Day of the Soldado review: An unecessary sequel that works as a standalone flick

If 2015's Sicario focused on Kate Macy (Emily Blunt) and Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro), 2018's Sicario: Day of the Soldado focuses on Alejandro and Matt (Josh Brolin). While the original had more of the dramatic-but-artsy, heartstopping elements, the sequel is way more action-oriented.

Was the original film any good? A resounding yes. Was a sequel necessary? Most definitely not. Is the sequel effective? Yes. Is the film a capable middle within a trilogy? Yes.

Before I get to the sequel, let me just mention how the sequel has been stripped of many a great asset from the original. Sicario's director Denis Villeneuve has been on a roll as of late (Prisoners, Enemy, Arrival, Blade Runner 2049) and can't let an unnecessary sequel get into his CV. Recent Oscar-winning cinematographer Roger Deakins hasn't returned. Principal actors Emily Blunt and Daniel Kaluuya (the star of Get Out) were FBI agents who followed the rule, to the book.

The sequel, Sicario: Day of the Soldado (I'll refer to it simply as Soldado henceforth), picks up a short time after the events of the first. If you haven't seen the first, you needn't worry. They scarcely mention the events of the first.

In fact, only screenwriter Taylor Sheridan is the link between the two. Sheridan always planned p making an anthology trilogy (three stand-alone movies and not necessarily direct sequels). The original title for the sequel was simply Soldado.

Now that we've got that out of the way, let's talk about the sequel on its own. It's a film that works. It's a brutal action-thriller that has a bunch of grim sets. In Soldado, amidst the drug war against Mexico, the cartels have found a way to smuggle contract killers and radical Islamists across the border. A bomb in a Kansas City department store (they assume that the perpetrators were from across the border) is what triggers the US government to put the cartels on their list of terrorists. A full-blown war is declared.

What Sheridan does well is to weave a story without any actual solutions. Time and time again (Hell or High Water and Wind River) he has done this. Instead of solutions, there are grim realities. It's akin to what is happening in today's world.

What else Sheridan does well, and is also a testament to director Stefano Sollima, is the occasional pauses, the slowing of the pace. Still, in between all the pauses, are bombs and explosions and people being shot at. There are various emotional highs and lows, especially when their backs are against the wall. Things get violent like the flick of a switch, which isn't necessarily a good thing.

Something that Sollima gets out of his actors is the fact that they are completely changed at the end of the film. No one is the same as when the film began. That raw emotion and heartfelt change happen only when a director is able to get the best out of his crew. In this case, Sollima gets a thumbs up.

While the original's stars wanted to centralise the cartels into one big stable cartel, the sequel tries to pit one cartel against another.

Soldado could be a straight-up gangster movie. What falters though is the third act (barring the last ten minutes). One feels like the studios (despite Sheridan himself wanting more movies) has imposed a mandate to make more movies of this kind. It seems as if the studio wants to make this into a franchise. There are moments where the tense setting of the first is forgotten for some car chase style faster-paced setting.

What lifts the movie from a simple hostage-rescue plot is the quality of the acting from Josh Brolin and more so from Benicio Del Toro. The raw emotion from Del Toro is reason enough to pile on the praise to an actor with a fantastic filmography.

The film doesn't say much about the US-Mexico drug war and that is a missed opportunity. The first was able to actually say a lot about the subject of immigration. Soldado feels like a step away from the original but looked at as a standalone flick, it works. It genuinely keeps you on the edge of your seat for a large part of the 123-minute run-time.

Verdict

Ultimately, it is the plot that brings the film down. The plot is very similar to those dozens of other narco-thrillers and any seasoned moviegoer can see the plot twists from a mile. One also misses Blunt's character from the original quite a bit. The distinct lack of a grounded female character in Soldado is felt throughout the movie, another misstep by the filmmakers.

Nonetheless, Soldado is stacked with good talent and well-intentioned people and the last ten minutes really does justice to the movie.

One hopes that Sheridan has a tighter script planned for the third and that he can bring back Deakins or Villeneuve or someone at the peak of the career to be on the crew.

Go into the movie expecting an action-oriented thriller and you'll get your popcorn's worth out of it.

Rating: 3/5