Denis Villeneuve’s 2015 drug war thriller
Sicario is a crushing masterclass in tension, sparse
landscapes full of violence, and grim realism. The follow-up, Sicario: Day of the Soldado, while filling a certain niche, feels very much
like a facsimile. Gritty and low-down and dirty, it watches like one of those
should-have-been DTV titles that magically gets a theatrical run because of
name recognition. Think London Has Fallen or pretty much anything
with Gerard Butler these days and you’re in the ball park. This comes with
positives, but also drawbacks.
Day of the Soldado offers a reasonable
recreation. New director, Stefano Sollima (Gomorrah, the TV
show not the movie), mimics his predecessor, writer Taylor Sheridan (Hell
or High Water, Wind River) returned to pen the
sequel, and cinematographer Dariusz Walski (The Martian,
Alien: Covenant), an accomplished pro in his own right, apes
Roger Deakins, who lensed the original, well enough. They capture the sweeping
vistas, constant tension, and escalating sense of pressure and lurking
violence.
While the surface trappings echo the original, Day
of the Soldado lacks the character development, depth, and nuance the
first offers. It never connects quite the same. However, it largely makes up
for this with a mean-spirited, nasty streak that, while present before, takes
center stage. Instead of focusing on Emily Blunt’s character, the plot revolves
around Josh Brolin’s government spook, Matt Graver, and Benicio Del Toro’s
near-mute, vengeance-minded former-lawyer-turned-hitman, Alejandro. But even
then, it’s missing of the raw, visceral impact that truly drives the tension
and thematic escalation.
After a terrorist attack on U.S. soil perpetrated by at
least one person smuggled across the Mexican border, the government calls in Graver
to start a full-scale war between the cartels. Funded by the government, he
enlists Alejandro and a gang of mercs to sow the seeds of chaos in a convoluted
plot that involves kidnapping Isabel Reyes (Isabela Moner,
Transformers: The Last Knight), the daughter of a cartel
kingpin, and blaming it on a rival crew. The plan, of course, goes south, and
they have to deal with the fallout. There’s also a thread with a burgeoning
coyote that, while it starts out intriguing—a young kid living on the border
(Elijah Rodriguez) falling in with the cartels—ultimately exists for narrative
convenience and accomplishes little but filling time.
Trump stans are going to love Day of the
Soldado and point to this fictional enterprise as a reason why we
need a wall and to persecute everyone who isn’t white. On the other side, they’ll
use it for as evidence that the government is involved in illicitly fostering
and financing instability and chaos around the globe. Which they are, they
always have. Basically, the conversation around this movie is going to be
insufferable and whatever your political agenda, you can use it to meet your
ends. So, go nuts.
But I think that’s giving the film too much credit. It’s not
that smart or insightful and doesn’t have anything to say in either direction.
While it may be a symptom, it’s nothing deeper than a dark, filthy crime
thriller, which is where it works best and offers the most entertainment. Every
non-action scene unfolds the same way. They build until one guy—it’s always a
guy, there are like two women in this movie—says a tough line and we cut away.
You can almost feel Sheridan work backwards from the endpoint and construct the
scaffolding to support these one-liners.
When the core duo breaks apart, it feels like Brolin and Del
Toro embark on two different movies. Brolin, drawling like half of his mouth is
fused shut, says ridiculous tough-guy, DTV-style things. In one scene, he looks
at his boss (Catherine Keener) after he caught a bullet in the arm in a
shootout with Mexican cops, brandishes his wound, and quips, “Fuckin’ Mondays,
huh?” He’s awesome and campy and clearly enjoying the fuck out of his time on
set.
Del Toro, on the other hand, is legitimately fantastic.
Quiet and understated, he speaks in vagaries and deposits an emotional oomph.
He has a strong chemistry and connection with Moner, and the two for an
earnest, delicate bond as they attempt to cross the border. The narrative
splits into this near-exploitation style story about military intervention and
another about two unlikely travelling companions on a fraught, harrowing
journey. Both are fine, though they never meld into a coherent whole.
Sicario: Day of the Soldado is a jumble.
It hits vicious highs and shrug-worthy, who-gives-a-shit moments. But for the most
part, I was on board with the grim, tension-filled narrative. Even if it’s ultimately
empty, it’s a solid, stripped-down story of the overlap between governments and
drug traffickers, and the violence this mix so often breeds. However, it
betrays itself in the final few minutes, taking a ludicrous leap, leaving one
key plot strand dangling in the wind, and trying to develop a spine and take a
stance, a move that rings hollow and false. The film and its very existence
parallels the story and the drug war. Ultimately, it’s mostly pointless and
wasteful and driven by American appetites. [Grade: B-]
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