Sicario: Day of the Soldado is a cash grab that trades in stereotypes

The sequel to the 2015 film, Sicario: Day of the Soldado is a loud, garish drama that seeks to assert every stereotype about Mexico is true.

Three years ago audiences were given Sicario, a dark drama directed by Denis Villeneuve starring Emily Blunt as a DEA agent stuck in the quagmire known as the Mexican drug war. The announcement of a sequel held promise to many, despite the feeling that the whole endeavor was unnecessary.

Emily Blunt’s loss in the sequel also drew concerns, particularly in light of Villeneuve and screenwriter Taylor Sheridan’s refrain that Blunt’s character was initially written to be a man and they’d decided to change it to a female. The eventual sequel, which only retains screenwriter Sheridan and male leads Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Toro, is about as subtle as 26 bullets to the face, point-blank. Sicario: Day of the Soldado is a dour and disturbing indulgence in racism and violence that’s hard enough to justify on the news, let alone being doled out for your entertainment.

Day of the Soldado throws out nearly everything established in the first film except for federal agent Matt Graver (Brolin) and his “sicario” or hitman, Alejandro (Del Toro). Through a series of convoluted plot machinations, the film follows Matt and Alejandro as they kidnap a cartel boss’ teenage daughter in the hopes of riling up the drug bosses enough that they’ll stop sending Islamic extremists over the border.

If that sounds incredibly bizarre there’s little reason to actively worry as Sheridan’s script picks up and drops plot points as quickly as a five-year-old discovering a new toy. Much of this establishing information is present purely to double down on stereotypes regarding Mexico. The first 10 minutes follows a group of immigrants crossing into the United States only to be stopped by border guards who are quickly blown up by a suicide bomber. With barely a moment to breathe, the film cuts to a store in the U.S., also blown up by four bombers, one of whom detonates the device in front of a white woman and her little girl. It’s remarkable the movie doesn’t play President Trump’s “they’re not sending their best” speech over the opening credits.

Dissociating Sicario from the political context of today is impossible, and in fact director Stefano Sollima and Sheridan look to profit from that knowledge. On the one hand it’s nearly laughable seeing Matthew Modine play the Secretary of Defense, a man so dogged he declares the terrorist attack a moment of empowerment; later it’s revealed the drug cartels are set to be labeled a terrorist group by the president without a hint of irony watching a commando unit led by white men indiscriminately slaughtering people in the streets of Mexico. An extended sequence with Catherine Keener’s Cynthia — representing the worst of Sheridan’s antipathy towards women — declaring how the President is horrified by Matt’s actions because they aren’t winning just seems tone-deaf. Day of the Soldado wants to live in a fantasy world, lampooning politics, while simultaneously playing into Middle America’s fear of Mexican immigration.

It’s difficult to ascertain when would have been the right time release this, but with times being what they are a movie where the gray boundary between the Americans starting a war with “everyone” and the evil Mexican cartel members who have seemingly everyone in their pocket never sits right. And that’s on top of the film’s pawn, 16-year-old Isabel (Isabella Moner), the daughter kidnapped by Graver’s crew. Watching a teenage girl be ripped out of a car and sent over the border to never see her family again… yeah, doesn’t play too well.

The problem is compounded by how uninterested in anything the script is. Brolin and Del Toro’s characters are brought back, but everything audiences needed to know about them was established three years ago. Alejandro was the grieving prosecutor whose wife and daughter were heinously killed, while Graver was the devil-may-care white guy who took too much joy in torturing people. They were antiheroes whose lives were cut and dry, hence why Blunt’s Kate Macer was integral to the plot; she was an independent observer who mimicked the audiences’ rage, distrust, and questioning. With Del Toro and Brolin at the helm, the inmates are running the asylum.

Del Toro’s Alejandro is completely transformed from the broken man turned avenging angel into a contradictory mercenary who had no compunction murdering two little boys in the first film, but is willing to sacrifice his life for Moner’s Isabel. Plot details are parsed out, but only to flesh out information we didn’t ask about to begin with. When Isabel and Alejandro stay the night at a deaf man’s house, the only reason for the scene to exist is to tell us Alejandro knows sign language. Why? Because his daughter was deaf. The empathy in the scene feels completely false, hoping that the audience will mourn not just a dead girl, but a dead deaf girl, and thus revere Alejandro as an antihero with a heart of gold.

The movie relies on you never seeing the first film. And where Alejandro gets an uptick in narrative, Brolin is regarded as superfluous. Matt Graver is only there to give the audience the reason for Alejandro’s presence, and large chunks of the narrative see Brolin off-screen or sitting in stoic contemplation. Nearly half his scenes involve him watching screens or looking off into the middle distance, probably staring at that sweet Avengers: Infinity Wars money.

Even the directing is tired. Previous director Denis Villeneuve at least presented things flashily, rapidly, with an air of liveliness. Kate’s journey had momentum. You knew there was an endgame. Italian director Stefano Sollima makes everything look stagnant. Transitions come through long aerial shots of Mexican desert, probably to remind audiences of how barren the movie truly is.

Other times the film turns into a Call of Duty commercial told entirely in night vision. The real diamond in this morass of ineptitude is Moner as Isabel. The 17-year-old actress is the only character with a discernible conscience who makes you care about her despite a complete absence of personality or history. Moner is luminous in the film’s early scenes, beating up a classmate for calling her a “narco whore.” She can hold her own, which only makes the scenes of her victimization, which is chronic and constant, all the worse. If Moner wasn’t such a strong performer the character would be insufferable.

It’s a long day’s journey for Sicario: Day of the Soldado. The movie has little reason to exist other than to promote an agenda of race-baiting and fearmongering which is prevalent enough for free. No one needs to pay to see it at their local theater. If you enjoyed the original Sicario this is a subpar effort on every level, particularly in regards to directing and acting.

Home/Movies