Film review- Sicario 2: Soldado

It’s at this point I realise Josh Brolin stars in three of my top ten films this year so far.

Sicario 2: Soldado is the sequel to Denis Villeneuve’s teeth-gritting tour-de-force from 2015. It stars Josh Brolin and Benicio del Toro as two terrible people in a terrible world where terrible things happen. These two awful people need to bring down an awful drug cartel on the awful Mexican border by any awful means necessary.

Right off the bat, I’m going to say that this movie is grim. If you’re looking for the Brolin from Avengers or Deadpool, you’re not going to get it. I’d honestly rather go up against Thanos than Sicario Brolin. Similarly, Del Toro, while really working his character to its limits is a far cry from whatever he was doing in The Last Jedi. This movie is dark, mercilessly bleak and unrelentingly cruel to everyone in it. I liken it to watching one of the really gut-wrenching episodes of Game of Thrones and you really have to be in a particular mood.

That said, it’s also fantastic. I was concerned that without Villeneuve’s mastery behind it, the Sicario story would become neutered and blunt. New director Stefano Sollima, instead, grabs the bull by the horns and unflinchingly maintains the terrifying realism. While it’s a bit easier to recover from than the original, those first few minutes really hit home hard.

The story it tells is simple and is all the better for it. Simplifying the events allows us more time with a limited cast of characters and the few plot threads all build towards each other in such a vicious deliberacy that I was praying for my predictive ability to shut up. Sicario 2 is masterful at build-up. It makes you dread every following scene by showing you what it’s willing to do in the opening minutes.

As for the bad, I’ve not a huge amount to say. I’ve got no desire to see it again but I think that’s slightly the point. If an open wound could be compelling, that’s what Sicario is. Erm… there’s a bit where Del Toro fires a gun in quite an amusing way which I don’t think was intended to be funny. It’s in the trailer, you’ll see what I mean. There are moments of implausibility dotted around plotting-wise. Other than that, I felt I had got my money’s worth.

So if you feel the sunny weather and relative World Cup success have put you in slightly too good a mood, go see Sicario 2. You might regret it.