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Sicario: Day of the Soldado Review

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This is a review of the TV-14 version of this film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version could be more negative

It’s time for the big Sicario sequel. I actually thought this one was quite a bit better as it plays out more like a classic action thriller. It definitely has a very different feel from the first but I’d also say it works well as more of a classic adventure for the crew without worrying about anyone new on the team. So in that way it makes sense that the film can just get down to business. Additionally it felt a lot les gritty than the last adventure.

The film starts off with Isis sending in a bunch of suicide bombers to a supermarket in Texas where they cause a lot of damage and a ton of people die. The government has decided to take down the Mexican Cartels once and for all. This time they are serious for real! So they call in Alejandro one more time. He’s told that this time he will be able to do whatever he wants because the idea is to make as much noise as possible. Basically they are going to frame each cartel so that they are all fighting each other and that will keep the U.S. free in the background. Well Alejandro is certainly happy to do this and he goes around blowing everything up but eventually the government gets cold feet and tells him to stop. Thing is, they want him to murder a little girl named Isabel too so now he has to find a way to keep her alive while dodging the Cartels and the government. Won’t be an easy job.

It was definitely predictable that the government would suddenly turn back but it was definitely annoying. When you leave a job half done that is just a recipe for disaster and that’s basically what happens here. It’s hard to just stop an operation midway like this and especially due to an event happening that was super predictable and everyone saw it coming. It just seemed a little bit crazy right out of the gate. The people in charge there were all super annoying and of course saying that they wanted to destroy the little girl was just so randomly out of left field. I knew the government was going to be shady but did they have to be this shady? It just seemed like a bit much if you ask me.

Alejandro does well as the lead though. He doesn’t compromise on his goal of saving Isabel here. He will defy any and everyone in order to make this happen and he’s someone that she can count on which is important since just about everyone she met has been rather two faced up to this point. It’s certainly not an easy adventure for her either since the whole chase and being kidnapped parts were definitely real stressful. She takes the experience as well as she can though and is good at catching up to speed right away. Alejandro’s gun skills are still at a really high level here as well.

Like in the last film Matt tends to play more of a shadow role compared to Alejandro. We know that Matt is generally very skilled as well and he gives orders but it’s just easy to forget that he is around at times since Alejandro takes center stage. Matt also has to follow the rules a lot more at least verbally so he isn’t able to help Alejandro much. By the end he helps in making the right call at least so I’ll give him some credit there.

The film definitely still has its share of violence as everyone is getting shot up throughout but the film is less about how violent and desolate everything is and more about the mission. This is really a frame up movie for the first half and then a rescue/extraction for the second half. The story is fairly tight and moves quickly with the action. It just felt more like what you’d see in James Bond or Jason Bourne compared to the first which was just aiming to be hyper realistic the whole time.

You do still feel the whole time like the government could have been backing up Alejandro a bit more though. Always having to do things in secret and then pretend they weren’t helping does get old after a while. It’s why you definitely wouldn’t want to work for the CIA since they can turn on you in the blink of an eye. The instant you are seen as no longer useful or expendable is the instant this all becomes a game over moment for you.

Overall, The second Sicario film continues to show how difficult it is to fight a cartel. It’s not quite like fighting a villain organization where you can go in and destroy everybody. These guys are all very scattered and blend in with other lives around them. They don’t all wear the same uniform or stay at a central base either. In a way putting the cartels against each other is the easiest way because you let them figure that all out but at the same time you are also resigning a lot of civilians to death since the cartels are going to try going for quick results rather than doing things very safely. It’s always a big risk to consider and it’s why this was a fairly shady move on all sides. Still, it makes for a fairly engaging film and there is a lot of tension throughout. Without Kate here it almost feels like there is no true main character. Of course Alejandro is the lead but you’re used to him as more of the side character role so it’s just a bit different. This feels like you’re thrown in the middle of a bigger operation and the film ends before it’s all totally over. It leads in well to a sequel and works well enough for the adventure even if I think we need more of a story and more standout characters before I would really call this film very solid.

Overall 5/10

Sicario Review

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This review is of the TV-14 edited version of the film. All thoughts should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative

It’s time for a very gritty look at what it can be like to try and stop a force as powerful as the cartels. It’s a tough reality that in some areas the police basically have no power and so everyone operates under the books in a society where might makes right. The main character learns this the hard way and while it can be a reminder how your life could always be more difficult, it doesn’t make for a great film. The excessive violence eventually knocks the fun out of the experience.

The movie starts with Kate and her partner Reggie arriving at a house where they take down the villains but unfortunately were too late to save the innocents. The building is filled with the bodies of everyone that they murdered and Kate feels rather hollow about this victory. The government calls her in though because this was traced to the Mexican cartels. They are sending in a task force to basically cause a lot of commotion and take these guys out at any cost. Kate decides to join in because she wants to see justice done but she’s about to see that “Justice” is going to encompass a whole lot of actions here. It’s not quite like any of her previous missions up til now.

Shortly after entering Mexico the main characters have their first gunfight which quickly gets you up to speed on how you really need to keep your guard up at all times. You always have to watch your back and even be staring inside the other cars because if you react late then your life is already over. You have to basically make the first move or be ready to make a move before the shooting actually begins. It’s certainly a tense atmosphere and as Alejandro tells Kate you can’t even trust your own allies. You never know who has been bought off or defected to the other side so at the end of the day you can only really trust yourself.

I’d say it takes a whole lot of grit in order to be able to survive in an atmosphere like this for even just a short while. For the members here who have been in the territory for years, well that’s not something that just anyone can do. Additionally the characters do resort to torture and other extreme methods in order to get answers which also requires a tough stomach. I’m still never on board with torture though even if it can be the only way to get results. It just feels like a line where once you cross it, you become one of the villains even if it’s for a noble cause. It’s just going too extreme even if it helps to serve your cause.

That’s one of the main struggles for Kate in this film as she just doesn’t agree with how extreme everything is here. You have people going on revenge missions and everyone is really using everyone else. This mission only works because some goals temporarily align but what happens when they don’t? You’re always having to keep score of whose interests are being served and that’s exhausting. Unfortunately Kate’s ways of coping with this aren’t always great.

The worst scene of this is when she decides to get drunk with the crew and then have an affair with someone that she’d never met before. Naturally he turned out to be one of the gang members and she’s very lucky that Alejandro showed up in time or she would have been dead. It just seemed very sloppy though. You’re effectively in enemy territory for all intents and purposes so now isn’t the time to be having a one night stand. For the most part she didn’t panic and make many bad moves during the film so this one really stood out. The only other moment was randomly attacking Matt in a fit of rage.

Sure he was complicit in knowing what Alejandro was doing but suddenly attacking him like that could have easily gotten her shot. She’s lucky that things didn’t get worse there. Meanwhile Matt does a pretty good job here. He is sort of like a less personally invested version of Alejandro. The guy is a capable field leader and knows how to fight but to him it’s still a job while to Alejandro it’s really his life. That’s a world of difference when going up against enemies in Mexico because you’re going to take less risks. Matt basically plays things by the (underworld) book and it all works out pretty well for him as a result.

As for Alejandro, he does well here. The guy definitely does have a big revenge motive but considering what the cartel did to his family you can definitely understand where he is coming from. It certainly doesn’t make him a hero and is why he can so ruthlessly torture anyone in his way but it does give him drive. You don’t want to mess with this guy because he does not mind collateral damage. The whole final scene is basically about how he has become the very kind of guy he has spent his life destroying. At this point he’s completely gone down the rabbit hole. It makes him an interesting Punisher type of main character to follow but certainly someone that you would consider to be another villain in the grand scheme of things. His crimes against humanity would be guilty under any court which is why he needs fake reports and such saying he is innocent. Not that the government is likely to openly mess with him either way but he doesn’t want to be vanished either.

Finally you have Kate’s partner Reggie who does a good job here. He basically pushed himself back into the mix to watch Kate’s back and he also makes sure that they get some answers. He’s not someone that you can just push around and I thought that he did a good job of backing her up. SO he fulfilled his objectives but ultimately he can only go so far here and a lot of the time Kate does have to be on her own

Ultimately I would believe this to be a very fair depiction of events in many war torn areas. It just make sense that you would see both sides breaking all sorts of unspoken rules of engagement and framing each other constantly. In any sort of battle with a gang, cartel, or some kind of corrupt government where you can’t count on a system to back you up then naturally you are going to turn to less desirable ways of completing your objectives. That’s just how it is but on the other hand the film could have definitely toned down some of it and made the movie more enjoyable. Remove the torture, more of the close up violence/aftermath, etc. At the end of the day you don’t get to be entertained here for very long before something drastic happens again and so it’s a fairly painful cycle of events. It’s definitely not a movie that has a whole lot of replay value.

Overall, I wouldn’t recommend checking out Sicario. It’s certainly a movie about perpetuating the cycle of violence to keep everyone busy which means while there are some winners there will always be losers as well. In a fight like this there will always be a lot of casualties and so it’s the innocent people in the middle who really end up getting squashed. Complex global issues like this will never have a clean solution where everyone triumphs but you always hope to try and minimize the casualties as best you can. The very last scene is definitely depressing when you think about it.

Overall 2/10