Film Review - Sicario 2: Soldado (15)

Dirty is exactly why you're here.

2015's Sicario was a taut and defiantly grim thriller that followed CIA operatives into Mexico as they hunted down a ruthless drug cartel boss. Josh Brolin headed up the team, while Emily Blunt played a by-the-book FBI agent along for the ride and consistently mind-blown by the outfit's lack of adherence to the law. Blunt provided the story's conscience, but it was Benicio Del Toro who ultimately took centre-stage as Alejandro, an attorney-turned-hitman (the sicario of the title) whose personal revenge mission Brolin and co were facilitating. 

Sicario 2: Soldado (UK title) turns out to be a stand-alone tale rather than a straight sequel. Brolin and Del Toro reprise their combat-hardened characters from the original, but Blunt is significantly absent. There's no one to needle the guys' sense of morality. As Matt Graver (Brolin) states early on, this time around there are 'no rules'. 

The men's mission is rooted in a newly established policy by the US government of treating Mexico's drug and people-traffickers as terrorists. The strategy is one of divide and conquer - set the cartels at odds with each other and, once they are thus weakened, make war on them. To this end Brolin and Del Toro plan the kidnap of Isabel Reyes, the schoolgirl daughter of a cartel boss, passing it off as the act of his rival and thus triggering the inter-cartel conflict. It's a clever scheme, executed by guys who are the best at what they do. No scheme this ambitious, however, is proof against dangerous complications...

Returning to the Sicario universe minus the previous film's moral touchstone was certainly a risk. The result is a murky storytelling landscape where the mission is all, and where a protagonist can empty a handgun clip into some helpless enemy without a moment's deliberation. Writer Taylor Sheridan is at home in this unforgiving world (as well as both Sicarios he's penned top-notch thrillers Hell or High Water and Wind River), where all morality comes in shades of grey. Soldado is all the more stark and unpalatable as a result, but it's also compelling and ingeniously plotted, with an occasional flicker of humanity within these characters' damaged souls to illuminate their darkness. 

The first film achieved a memorable visual beauty, courtesy of director Denis Villeneuve and cinematographer Roger Deakins, one that contrasted strikingly with the story's harshness. This time Stefano Sollima of TV crime saga Gomorrah creates an environment as hard and bleak as our antiheroes' grimly pragmatic worldview. The score meanwhile borrows the ominous rumbling theme from the first film, this new narrative delivering totally on the sense of threat. 

Brolin and Del Toro firmly established their characters first time around and here they both excel. The former is smug and darkly funny as the no-bullshit CIA operative, while as the enigmatic Alejandro, Del Toro has arguably carved out the movie role of his career. The ruthless calculation with which he pursues his vengeance hides a core of pain that is genuinely moving on the few occasions we get to glimpse it. Catherine Keener is scarily efficient as Brolin's boss, while Isabela Moner calls on our empathy as the drug lord's kidnapped daughter - her sense of entitlement dissipating with her radical change of circumstance. Look out too for Elijah Rodriguez as Miguel, a raw but determined mafioso recruit whose subplot dovetails with the main story to dramatic effect.

I said that Sicario 2 stood on its own, but in truth it will benefit from knowledge of the first. The darkness in both lead characters' souls having been already proven, it remains to be seen how long they can outrun conscience with the moral brakes off. The world they inhabit is as pulse-pounding as it is grimy and despairing, with all aspects of the production committed to reality - however grubby that reality may be. The ride isn't comfortable, but it is dramatically satisfying. And it's not one you'll easily forget.

Gut Reaction: The first Sicario got me invested in these difficult characters. Sicario 2 had me all scrunched up in my 'engrossed' posture from the start. Consider me very gripped.

Where Are the Women?: There isn't the same strong female lead as last time for clear storytelling reasons. Keener and Moner turn in good performances nonetheless.

Ed's Verdict: 8/10. Tough, twisting and confrontational. If you require your leads heroic and easy-to-like, look elsewhere. But for dark, complex humanity in a world that takes no prisoners, Sicario is your (rather unexpected) franchise.