Sicario: Day of the Soldado (Film Review)

2018 Columbia Pictures/Lionsgate
Directed by: Stefano Sollima; Written by: Taylor Sheridan
Starring: Benecio del Toro, Josh Brolin, Isabela Moner, Jeffrey Donovan, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, and Catherine Keener; MPAA Rating: R
Nicsperiment Score: 7/10

I won't mince words here: I'm not sure if I liked the original Sicario, because I fell asleep. Languid pace-loving director, Denis Villeneuve, has made me fall asleep before, and my snores were never louder than during Sicario. I do remember waking up to Benecio del Toro killing seemingly everyone else in the movie, though. After that, I forgot about Sicario, until I saw the trailers for Sicario: Day of the Soldado. Boy were those trailers great. They sold this new Sicario movie as a political action thriller in the vein of Clear and Present Danger, with a spy vs. spy on steroids element coming to play with del Toro vs. Josh Brolin. If there's one thing I'm in the mood for right now, it's exactly what I just described.
Well, those trailers are misleading. Sicario: Day of the Soldado's got action, but it isn't wall-to-wall. Brolin and del Toro go head-to-head, but it's really just over the phone. The duo play two shades of the same color: each is a government operative quite comfortable, and maybe only actually existent in the gray. If you need something done off the books, you call these guys.
This time, they've been tasked with launching a bunch of false flag operations against several Mexican drug cartels, in an attempt to create a chaos which will halt the cartels purported smuggling of Islamic terrorists across the Mexican/US border. This culminates in the kidnapping of a cartel leader's daughter, but before you can even say, "Are you sure this is a good idea?" the geniuses in Washington have decided maybe the cartels haven't actually been helping the terrorists, and maybe Brolin and del Toro should just kill the lone surviving witness to the operation, the kidnapped daughter, and head back home. Due to some events this review will not not spoil, del Toro and kidnapee end up on one side of the border, and Brolin on the other, with Brolin and del Toro having quite differing opinions on whether or not their orders should actually be followed.
Taylor Sheridan's screenplay isn't overly concerned with a deep dive into Day of the Soldado's leads' psyches. The way Brolin daintily handles a cup of espresso after killing a suspect's entire family with a walkie-talkie during an interrogation in the film's first five minutes tells the viewer all they need to know about him. Likewise do shots of del Toro roaming South American streets like a ghost, then returning to his bare and unadorned apartment. This is a lean film, tense and gritty, but never quite committing to any one direction or feeling. It's not quite an action film, even though the beats are solid, including a roadside ambush from a non-combatants point of view, and a thrilling tracking shot of del Toro taking out a cartel car with a grenade. It's not quite a political thriller, as it drops any pretense of that once the mission is cancelled. It's not quite a suspense movie, as both main characters have enough blood on their hands to take away most of their sympathetic qualities, and thus, any fear that they'll be killed.
However, during its final five hypnotic minutes, I began to wonder if perhaps this film will go from middlingly-regarded to classic one day, when a critic gains some new perspective on it. After all, when del Toro does something quite mystical at the end, I began to wonder if he and Brolin are meant to be archetypes, as opposed to real flesh-and-blood characters. Perhaps Sheridan is saying something that seems transparent and shallow, but actually contains hidden depths.
Or maybe not.
What will not change is that Sicario: Day of the Soldado is beautifully shot and well-staged by director, Stefano Sollima, with a tension-buidling score by Hildur Guðnadóttir. It features some gorgeously bare Mexican landscapes, some quick, memorable bursts of violence, and stunningly underplayed performances by its two excellent leads. Whether that eventually adds up to more one day, only time can tell, but at least this time I stayed awake.