In 2015, Denis Villeneuve delivered one of the best thrillers of that year with "Sicario", a fast paced, exciting delve into the border drug battle with Mexico's cartels.
Two of that film's characters are back for more in this 2018 sequel, SICARIO: DAY OF THE SOLDADO.
When radical Islamic terrorists cross the border in Mexico and unleash a terrifying bombing in Kansas City, the government calls in Matt Graver (Josh Brolin) to lead a covert and expansive reaction. Graver develops an elaborate plan to turn Mexico's drug cartels against each other by staging a kidnapping of the daughter of a drug lord.
He turns to his partner in the first Sicario, shady international hit man Alejandro, very well played by Benecio del Toro.
The two men operate a carte blanche, off the record operation backed with hundreds of millions of US dollars in technology and air support.
They kidnap the teenage daughter of the drug lord who brought the terrorists into Texas and cleverly pin the blame on another cartel, but where the story goes from there is fascinating and unexpected.
A parallel story is told about a young man living on the US side of the border, drawn into crime by the lure of power and money dangled by his dangerous cousin. The subplot sets up an obvious point when the stories will meld together. However, when it happens, the details are not at all what I expected.
Isabela Moner (Instant Family) is very good as Isabela, a tough teenager who's anything but when plunged in the middle of a massive battle.
Brolin and del Toro are both excellent. You can see the internal conflict they battle when the war they're fighting begins to strike far too closely to home for both of them.
There are tense gun battles, massive attacks in Mexico that blur the lines between right & wrong and plenty of high tech surveillance and pursuit scenes that reminded me of those well done Jack Ryan films of the past.
But the story at the heart of this sequel is much more personal, drilling down into two young lives and the impact of the international drug and immigration battles raging daily at our border to the south.
Screenwriter Taylor Sheridan (Hell of High Water, Wind River) returns after penning the original and delivers another great story, also delving deeper into both Graver and Alejandro's personal stories.
If the final moments left me unsettled and not entirely happy, they seem more appropriate a day later, portraying the seemingly never ending loop that so many lives are bound to on both sides of the border.
The film's ending leaves you wanting more answers, and yet you know exactly where these characters are headed.
Matthew Modine (Full Metal Jacket, The Dark Knight Rises) is picture perfect as a high government official, Catherine Keener (Get Out) is well cast as the CIA operative doing his bidding with a full understanding of the gray area they are playing in and Elijah Rodriquez is powerful as young Miguel, indoctrinated into a dark life of a crime "soldado" or soldier.
Emily Blunt did not return from the original. Sheridan said that was because her character served as the moral center of the first film, and there is NO moral compass woven into the immigration and drug battle to our South, a point well made by the film.
Not as good as the original, but still exciting, smart and suspenseful, SICARIO: DAY OF THE SOLDADO gets a B.
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