Sicario: Day of the Soldado Review!

Sicario was one of the most stunning dramas of 2015.  It followed Emily Blunt’s F.B.I. agent Kate Macer who gets drawn into the task force led by Matt Graver (Josh Brolin) and Alejandro Gillick (Benicio del Toro).  Sicario: Day of the Soldado continues the films with a subtitle meaning day of the soldier.  This film is with director Denis Villeneuve and cinematographer Roger Deakins with new director Stefano Soillima and cinematography by Dariusz Wolksi.  The visuals are brutal and grounded, but not crafted as works of art like the first film.  Severe warning, this movie is terrifying in it’s too-real world violence and ramifications so if this is not for you, really don’t see it!  This is a movie that can happen tomorrow or has happened yesterday.  Josh Brolin eliminated half of the universe’s population in Avengers: Infinity War, but he is infinity more dangerous here as an operative who kills without remorse.  He is also Cable in Deadpool 2.  This is the Year of the Brolin.  The same with Benicio del Toro, not the silly alien from Avengers: Infinity War, now he plays a ruthless killer.  

The film opens in Mexico where a helicopter monitors groups trying to make a border crossing.  One man separates from the group and he is surrounded by agents, then sets off a bomb.  Kansas in a supermarket, terrorist set off suicide bombs that take out shoppers including a mother and child that plead for their lives.  There is a news report about the Secretary of State, James Riley, played by Matthew Modine.  He notes that there will be a response to the act.  A team checks out the bomb scene in Mexico and finds prayer rugs.  Gulf of Somalia, a special forces team kills off a house of people before taking a prisoner.  At a military base, the prisoner is interrogated by Matt Graver (Brolin) who asks him the identity of the bombers, he shows a video of a home that is destroyed by a missile.  Graver tells the prisoner that he was paid not to attack a particular ship.  He threatens the prisoner with another video of a van being tracked and says he will kill all of his brothers.  

We also get a young man, Miguel Hernandez (Elijah Rodriguez) in Texas, his cousin works for the cartels transporting people across the border.  It seems like his character intersects with Graver and Gillick as he is brought into the cartel, but there is a twist.  Graver reports his intel to Cynthia Foards (Catherine Keener) who acts as his intermediary with the government.  Keener was of course brilliant in last year’s Get Out, her character here is important in how the orders are carried out.  Graver reports that Mexican cartels helped the terrorists cross the border.  Washington, D.C., Graver meets with the Secretary of State and other officials, his plan is to cause the cartels to kill each other.  He is given authorization off the books, he says, “You want to see this thing through I’m going to have to get dirty.”  Miguel is shown by his cousin the border and later makes contact with the cartel.  He takes group to cross the border in a. river.  Miguel also takes a drop at a fast food restaurant in a mall.  

At a bar, Graver meets with a contact to get soldiers and supplies and he divulges the operation is in Mexico.  Bogota, Colombia, we have Alejandro Gillick (del Toro) return home to find a note to not shoot the man inside.  He enters and finds Graver in his living room.  Graver says, “No rules this time.”  This is chilling.  We also get a private school in Mexico where Isabela Reyes (Isabela Moner) is fighting with another girl.  Moner was last in Transformers: The Last Knight (2017), but here she is completely brilliant, defiant, a survivor, but frightened by the events.  She is taken to the principal’s office with three scratches on her face.  The principal threatens to expel her, but Isabela explains the other girl insulted and slapped her.  She stands up and dares him to expel her. Isabel is the daughter of a cartel member so she leaves.  They meet in Texas at the same shopping mall where Graver meets a contact.  Their car pulls out and nearly runs over Miguel who stares at the passengers.  

Mexico, in a hotel room, Graver and his team including Steve Forsing (Jeffrey Donovan) who was also in the first Sicario.  They are watching vans pull into the private school.  Isabel goes into a black car.  A grey truck follows the black car, Isabel notes that there is no signal on her computer, and then the truck rams her car, we get the perspective of her thrown violently forward.  The team has pulled on hoods and shoot the bodyguards, Graver has one left alive to deliver the message.  Isabel has a black headphone and hood placed over her before being taken away.  A lawyer flees the scene, but Gillick shoots him in the leg.  He asks the lawyer to put on his glasses that have fallen, then pulls off his hood, to unload his pistol’s clip, very savage.  His family was killed by the Reyes cartel, Isabel’s father, but he finds that he has to save her.  She is taken to a jet on a military base and over to Texas and a secluded house.  There is a betrayal and Alejandro has to make the decision to save Isabel.  It gets bloody and brings Miguel into the tale of loyalty and violence.       

Four Bullets out Five!

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