Sicario: Day of the Soldado (2018) | Movie News & Review

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SICARIO: DAY OF THE SOLDADO (2018) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

SICARIO: DAy of the SOLDADO (2018) movie

Genre | Action Thriller

Classification | MA 15+

Running time | 122 minutes

Released | 28 June 2018

cast

Benicio Del Toro ... Alejandro
Josh Brolin ... Matt Graver
Matthew Modine ... James Ridley

director

Stefano Sollima

writer

Taylor Sheridan

cinematographer

Dariusz Wolski

music

Hildur Guðnadóttir

film editor

Matthew Newman

box office result

Worldwide $? million

Australia $? million

North America $? million

the best dialogue

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SICARIO: DAY OF THE SOLDADO (2018) MOVIE IMAGES

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SICARIO: DAY OF THE SOLDADO (2018) STORY SYNOPSIS

The drug war on the US-Mexico border has escalated as the cartels have begun trafficking terrorists across the US border. To fight the war, federal agent Matt Graver re-teams with the mercurial Alejandro.

SICARIO: DAY OF THE SOLDADO (2018) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty | Review date 27 June 2018
Pop Movee Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐

In 2015, Canadian Director Denis Villeneuve delivered one of the year’s best films - SICARIO. Starring Emily Blunt, Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Toro, the film, based on SONS OF ANARCHY actor Taylor Sheridan’s story, SICARIO felt like a high-octane “documentary” exploring the US “War on Mexican drugs”. It was easy to forget that Villeneuve’s movie was a work of fiction, such was the intensity, realism and impact of its story.

While SICARIO did moderate box office business, it wasn’t until the back-end of the Awards season that a broader audience “found” the film.

In the three years after SICARIO, it’s come to pass that writer Taylor Sheridan was as much the reason for the impact the film had upon viewers as its Director. With the subsequent HELL OR HIGH WATER (2016) and WIND RIVER (20107), Sheridan has since provided two of the most memorable cinematic tales about what is happening throughout the “badlands” of the United States, tapping into the very real fears of everyday Americans confronted by ever-increasing injustice in all form and manner.

When it was announced that Sheridan was developing a sequel to SICARIO, it was hard to imagine where it might go. Early reports suggested that Josh Brolin, as US covert operative Matt Graver, and Benicio Del Toro, as Attorney-turned-Hitman Alejandro, would return and the new film would go deeper into the euphemistic underbelly of “The Beast”, exploring the pair’s efforts to dismantle the Mexican drug cartels.

These reports proved to be correct, but Sheridan’s SICARIO follow-up has cleverly subverted expectation…

In the hands of Director Stefano Sollima, this new film shifts the focus from drugs to people; namely, the thousands of Mexicans who attempt to make it across the country’s northern border and the prospect of a better life in the “land of the free and home of the brave”.

Reason One - Timing is everything

SICARIO: DAY OF THE SOLDADO arrives in cinemas at a time when the US-Mexico relationship is a central focus in American domestic politics. One of Donald Trump’s campaign pledges was to build a wall between the US and Mexico. This was as much a symbolic gesture as it was a realistic one, designed to tap into the sentiment among conservative Americans that not enough was being done to stem the flow of drugs and immigrants from the country’s southern neighbour.

DAY OF THE SOLDADO taps right into this conservative Zeitgeist and links illegal Mexican immigrants with the drug cartels of the first film. Brolin’s Matt Graver states very clearly in the opening minutes of the film that ten years ago the biggest problem posed by the Mexican cartels was cocaine; in the present day, it’s people, namely, the aforementioned illegal immigrants.

Irrespective of PRO or CON positions about the dilemma of illegal immigration, DAY OF THE SOLDADO could not have been better timed to deliver this very real issue as a mainstream feature film.

Reason Two - Josh Brolin

DAY OF THE SOLDADO gives Brolin the opportunity to provide some shade to his Matt Graver character, demonstrating the versatility that has seen the actor’s career blossom over the last decade.

Eddie Mannix in HAIL, CAESAR!, George W. Bush in W., all the way back to Llewelyn Moss in NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN...

Brolin’s resume since 2007 has been filled with the excellent all the way through to the extraordinary. 2018 has proven to be no different, despite the roles Brolin’s played. Not many actors can go from two Marvel characters in the space of two months back to a role like Matt Graver and not possess genuine acting skill. The fact that Brolin delivers both empathy and gravitas in every single one of his roles is a testimony to just how good he has become at what he does.

In the 2015 SICARIO film, Brolin’s character uses Emily Blunt’s Kate Macer to get the job done. In this second film, his character takes more direct responsibility for the means used to justify the end. Brolin portrays Graver less as a covert operative and more like a soldier, delivering a more subtle, nuanced performance along the way.

Brolin’s character arc is the most complex and, by the end of the film, he is placed in an incredibly compromised position by his superiors. Depending on the commercial success of DAY OF THE SOLDADO, it’s very easier to believe that Taylor Sheridan has a third SICARIO story ready to explore; one that requires Graver to account for the decisions his superiors have imposed upon him. Unfortunately, in the context of the ongoing SICARIO tale, he won’t be able to claim he was “just following orders”.

Reason Three - Benicio Del Toro

Del Toro’s Alejandro is as complex as Brolin’s Graver.

Sheridan and Sollima take great care not to create a “monster” of Del Toro’s character despite Graver telling the Hitman that this time there will be no rules.

There’s so much to like about Del Toro. He is a very still performer, using his rich voice and dark eyes to penetrate scenes without chewing scenery. He’s the ideal presence to deliver such a complicated character. For legitimate story reasons, Alejandro displays far more emotion in the new film than the previous, but that doesn’t mean the essence of the character from the first film is lost.

Those who recall his actions toward the end of SICARIO may find the character’s arc a little difficult to understand in DAY OF THE SOLDADO, but there’s an internal logic at play in Sheridan’s story that requires some thought on the part of the viewer. The relationship he forges with Isabela Moner’s Isabel Reyes is an important part of the film and it’s necessary for his character to exhibit some humanity in light of the circumstance in which he and his young charge find themselves placed in.

Reason Four - Intensity

SICARIO was an emotionally draining experience because Denis Villeneuve and legendary Cinematographer Roger Deakins never let up with the story’s visual intensity. DAY OF THE SOLDADO is not as visually impressive as the first film, but Sollima does a wonderful job at continuing its intensity.

Dariusz Wolski, frequent collaborator with Ridley Scott, steps in as Cinematographer, opting to use a lot of natural light and a heap of close-up shots to convey the action. Wolski and Sollima stage the action according to the character’s deteriorating level of support from their superiors. In the early parts of the film, the shots reflect the confidence of Graver, Alejandro and the team of soldiers who work to incite conflict between the Mexican cartels. As the mission starts to unravel, so to does the manner in which the action is captured, deliberately so. Characters are less sure, have less visibility and their actions are not nearly as precise as their situation becomes more and more compromised. The character’s uncertainty is the viewer’s uncertainty.

It’s wonderfully staged filmmaking and, without a shadow of a doubt, audiences will feel a sense of mental fatigue having sat through DAY OF THE SOLDADO.

Besides the contemporary reality of the story, the acting of the leads and the sheer intensity of the story, there are a great many other points upon which to recommend DAY OF THE SOLDADO.

One of the most impressive elements of SICARIO was its music and sound design. Much of this was due to the late Johann Johannsson, who tragically died earlier this year (February 9) at just 48 years of age. For a man who had really just started to come into his own as a Film Score Composer, the news of his death was shocking.

Johannsson had previously stated that Denis Villeneuve asked him to deliver “subtle war music” for SICARIO. There’s little doubt he delivered the brief.

For DAY OF THE SOLDADO, Stefano Sollima has enlisted Johannsson collaborator, Hildur Guonadottir. Known for her work as a Cellist, Guonadottir worked alongside Johannsson on Villeneuve’s ARRIVAL & PRISONERS, as well as Alejandro G. Innaritu’s THE REVENANT. Guonadottir’s cello work featured prominently in SICARIO’s most distinctive musical cue, “The Beast”, a piece that anticipated early on the impending dread of what was to follow as Emily Blunt’s Kate Macer becomes more embroiled in a situation entirely out of her control. The Icelandic musician’s promotion to Composer for DAY OF THE SOLDADO honours both the work done by Johannsson on the first film (and her contribution to it) and helps provide a creative link between the first and second stories.

Like SICARIO, DAY OF THE SOLDADO offers no easy answers.

Audiences looking for vicarious thrills and easy entertainment should think twice about seeing this film.

That said, as many people as possible should make the effort to buy a ticket to see SICARIO: DAY OF THE SOLDADO.

Even better, watch SICARIO at home first and then go and see DAY OF THE SOLDADO. For good measure, watch HELL OR HIGH WATER with Jeff Bridges, Chris Pine & Ben Foster, as well as WIND RIVER with Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen. Taylor Sheridan’s stories inform each other and they are building a narrative that directly reflects the social and political torment that currently gnaws away at the collective American psyche.

DAY OF THE SOLDADO is the most accessible of these stories and there will be a part of the audience who completely miss the point of the film. That’s why it’s advisable to be across the Sheridan back catalogue. Even so, this second “HITMAN” outing extends the narrative, creating a personal dilemma for its characters, who, in the beginning, seemed to be without any moral compass to guide them.