Sicario: Day of the Soldado is a 2018 thriller about the drug war on the US-Mexico border that has escalated as the cartels have begun trafficking terrorists across the US border.
One of the top movies of 2015 was the sleeper hit Sicario. To this day it feels as if enough people have not seen it. It is brilliantly directed by Denis Villeneuve (Arrival, Blade Runner 2049), and was written by the extremely talented Taylor Sheridan (Wind River, Hell or High Water). Not to mention it features top notch performances from Josh Brolin, a scary Benicio Del Toro and Emily Blunt. Maybe to most the news that Sicario was getting a sequel wasn’t that exciting, but fans such as myself should be ecstatic. I will say I’m a little uneasy about the entire thing because Sicario does feel like a movie that a sequel could spoil, but the fact that Sheridan, Del Toro and Brolin are all returning gives me confidence. The first trailer did a great job at generating excitement, but let’s peel back what the second trailer has to offer.
The trailer begins with Alejandro Gillick (Del Toro) talking to a little girl who tells him that she knows who he is, that her father killed his family, and how he hunts them. We then cut to a scene of Alejandro conducting some of this ‘hunting’ in broad daylight. The trailer moves on to giving us some basis for where the film will be taking us. Apparently the Mexican drug cartels aided a terrorist, so the President of the US has branded cartels as terrorists. In order to put a stop to this the US government brings in Matt Harvey (Brolin), who tells them that he’ll need to get dirty to put a stop to things. Matt then goes to his old bird dog, Alejandro, to start a war between the Mexican cartels. To do this they hatch a plan that includes kidnapping the young girl from the beginning (most likely the daughter of a cartel leader). However, it appears the kidnapping goes awry and they inadvertently have a firefight with the Mexican government. Because the kidnapped girl was a witness to this mishap, Harvey is ordered to eliminate her. Alejandro, undergoing a sudden change of conscience, does not agree to get rid of her, and goes on the run against Harvey. From here the two are pinned against one another, one trying to save face for the US government, the other trying to save an innocent child.
I have high hopes for this movie. Sicario did a great job at setting the table by introducing characters and giving a real-life look into what goes on in the land of the cartels (not to mention the US govt). Soldado really seems to be upping the ante now. Expect the action and intensity to be drastically increased here, and I imagine that we’re going to be in for one wild ride.