Sicario: Day of the Soldado

A few days after watching Sicario: Day of the Soldado (2018, dir. Stefano Sollima), I found that I couldn’t recall basic details of the film, except that it had to do with deeply compromised men trying to save a child whom at first they were determined to kill.  The original Sicario (dir. Denis Villeneuve, 2015) effectively portrayed the compromised methods and motives of American drug agents trying to combat the drug trade in Northern Mexico.  Their motives were good, but as the movie progressed their methods became questionable. We begin this sequel at a point well beyond the end of the original film.  Matt Graver, played by Josh Brolin, returns as the DEA agent Matt Graver.  He’s much the worse for wear, physically and morally. Alejandro (Benecio del Toro) returns as well, a mercenary of sorts whom the Americans hire to help with anti-drug operations. One operation in particular goes wrong, and the Americans decide that everyone (that is, every Mexican) who knows about it has to be killed in order to protect the secrecy of the operation.  One of their targets is a young boy.  At different moments, both Alexandra and Graver have second thoughts about killing the boy, despite what they’ve been ordered to do, and after much killing and mayhem the boy is saved.

The underlying sentimentalism, along with the idea of two tarnished souls redeemed by what we are supposed to think is their better natures, ruins the film.  No longer is it a study of the moral and human depths to which anti-drug operations by Americans and Mexicans can sink.  Instead it becomes a movie about rescue and indiviual redemption.  This film is entertaining but doesn’t live up to its predecessor. Its director, Stefano Sollima, about whom I know little, can’t rise to the level of Denis Villeneuve.