After confirming the absences of Denis Villeneuve, Roger Deakins, and Emily Blunt, and with the title of Soldado finally decided at the eleventh hour, I was concerned about what exactly I was going to be seeing at the screening of the Sicario sequel.
However, the acting calibre of both Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Toro delivered again. Their cold, merciless characters in the world Villeneuve established dished out questionable solutions to the cartel problem. The ideas of law and morality explored in Sicario (2015) are enriched in its anthological follow-up, by delving into the lengths these people will go to to achieve their goals, and exploring the effects of the drug world on children. The first act of the new film encapsulates this, with Matt Graver (Brolin) and Alejandro (Del Toro) organising a “false flag” operation by kidnapping a cartel leaders’ daughter Isabela, in a set sprinkled with pieces that attempt to mimic the tense Mexican border scene of Sicario. After this point, however, the movie has an identity crisis and can’t quite decide what it wants to be. The plot lines between Alejandro and Isabela bogs the film’s second act down. Consequently, the third act rushes to tie in the remaining plot line and delivers a fake-out death with an obvious set up for another film.
Without the slick direction of Villeneuve and the cinematic eye of Deakins, Soldado comes across as another reactionary sequel. It delivers the central advertised conflict with the cartel, but struggles to keep the story afloat by choosing to focus on the next generation, (another sequel trend) and then cops out its ending for the sake of milking this franchise.
Hopefully, for their sake, Taylor Sheridan will still be willing to write the next one.