Butler's Cinema Scene

Isabela Moner, Benecio Del Toro

“SICARIO: DAY OF THE SOLDADO” My rating: B- 

102 minutes | MPAA rating: R

“Sicario” was one of 2015’s best films, a (mostly) South of the Border crime drama which posited that the war on drugs is not only unwinnable but destined to make the U.S. as complicit in evil as the cartels.

Also, it starred Emily Blunt (always a welcome thing) as an F.B.I. agent who discovers the hard way that in this conflict there are no good guys.

The Blunt-less “Sicario: Day of the Soldado” is a step down from the original (this was pretty much inevitable); nevertheless it works reasonably well as a high-tension crime thriller.

Scripted once again by Taylor Sheridan (“Wind River,” “Hell or High Water”) and directed this time around by Stefano Solima (the Italian TV crime drama “Gomorrah”), this entry reunites Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Toro as, respectively, CIA operative Matt Graver and his right-hand man, former cartel hitman Alejandro.

This time we don’t have to discover through a principled heroine that our government is willing to do all sorts of unpalatable things to secure our safety. Truth is, just about every character in the film is outright evil or seriously compromised.

Early on, Islamic terrorists blow up a big box store in Kansas City; the feds determine that the suicide bombers entered the U.S. as illegal immigrants crossing the Rio Grande, guided by underlings of the Reyes drug cartel.

Graver and Alejandro are assigned to start a war among the various cartels through a series of assassinations. They also set in motion a plan to kidnap Isabel Reyes (Isabela Moner), the teen daughter of the Reyes cartel’s leader.

Of course this skullduggery is off the books; the government bigwigs who order the mission (Catherine Keener, Matthew Modine) are all about deniability and any member of the team is expendable if it means keeping a lid on things.

Benicio Del Toro, Josh Brolin

Sheridan’s script follows three basic plots.  First there’s Graver’s implementation of a scheme that will end with American agents shooting it out with Mexican federal police. Lots of firepower is involved.

Then there’s the kidnapping of Isabel and her slow-growing relationship with Alejandro, who serves as  a sort of father figure (as well as her captor).  They are so simpatico that when the mission goes belly up and he’s ordered to leave no loose ends, Alejandro defies Graver and goes on the run with the teenager.

Finally there’s the story of Miguel (Elijah Rodriguez), a teen in a Texas border town who becomes involved in a lucrative but dangerous plot to smuggle human traffic across the border.

All three plot threads come together in the end.

“Sicario: Day of the Soldado” drips with torn-from-the-headlines immediacy. Moreover, Solima creates a world of moral vacuum, where anything goes and nothing is out of bounds.

The acting is fine. I especially like the way young Moner takes her character from defiant, spoiled rich bitch to someone whose fate we care about.  And Del Toro is quietly compelling (are not a little scary) as a man without a country.

Technical aspects are first rate, with the cinematography of Dariusz Wolski (“The Martian,” “Prometheus,” “Sweeney Todd”) turning even bright sunlight into a sort of smoggy shroud.

| Robert W. Butler