Sicario 2: Day of the Soldado, is a brutal sequel to the original film released in 2015. While the first film was also very high on the violence-meter, this sequel manifests itself with a different, far darker tone. While this 2018 sequel returns the two main male leads, Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Toro, it does not have Emily Blunt, and the lack of her character, and, more importantly, her character's morality and conscience, makes a big difference in how this movie develops.
While the actions of Del Toro's character at the end of the first Sicario film was as brutal, and, yes, evil, as anything perpetuated by the drug cartel villains in the film, the majority of the first movie's plot was driven by the decisions of Brolin's character, with Blunt's character as a moral counterweight. As Del Toro consummated his revenge in the closing scenes of the original film, we now see that action as the segue to the "realpolitik" sensibility of Sicario 2.
The plotlines of Sicario 2, seemingly ripped from today's headlines (illegal immigration, drug wars, ISIS, terrorism, suicide/homicide bombers, commando raids in Somalia, etc), makes it seem that the creators of this film are backing some right-wing crusade against all of America's perceived enemies and against our collective evils. Make no mistake, the bad guys (terrorists, drug cartels, Somali warlords, et al) are clearly brutal and evil, but Brolin and his bosses in the government show that a lack of a moral compass is not just confined to narcos, or to terrorists.
In one sense, this is a very subversive film. On the surface, the entire first act of the movie reads like a right-winger's wet dream: ISIS terrorists are infiltrating the U.S. border, hidden among the hordes of immigrants crossing the border are people willing to blow themselves up. We then see four men, clearly Muslim, blow up a grocery store in Kansas City in a suicide/homicide bombing, intentionally murdering a mother and her young daughter, among others. The message here? That the U.S.-Mexico border is a sieve that let's America's enemies infiltrate to cause mayhem. I am somewhat surprised no one mentions "The Wall."
Assuming that the bad guys entered Mexico by ship, Brolin and the military take out a Somali warlord, getting information that leads them to believe the terrorists infiltrated Mexico, and then into the U.S., with the aid of the Mexican drug cartels.
The plan, as concocted by Brolin and the U.S. Secretary of Defense (played by an aging Mathew Modine), is to kidnap the daughter of a drug cartel leader, while making it look like it was done by a rival cartel, thus sparking a war among the Mexican cartels. Simple, yes? What could go wrong?
This plan then prompts Brolin to bring in Del Toro's character, who still has a score to settle with the Reyes cartel. One thing leads to another, they kidnap the girl, played quite well by Isabela Moner, and then their intricate plan begins to unravel.
At this point, the gun-porn action takes off, and in the action-adventure aspect of the film, this is a pretty good action flick. The gun battle involving the convoy is well-done and thrilling, and the reaction of the kidnapped girl is spot-on! This then starts the second act, where Benicio Del Toro and the girl begin their journey. Along the way this rich girl, who arrogantly flaunted her father's power to her own advantage, gets to see how the poor side of Mexico lives, from the poor deaf campesino, to the huddled masses yearning to cross the treacherous border. While we do not get to hear the motivations and stories of these immigrants, we do see the dangers and risks they take to secure a better life for themselves in the U.S.
The last act in the movie shows the total unraveling of the "open border is a danger" narrative, as we find out (SPOILERS HERE....) that...
...the assumption that the Kansas City bombers were foreign terrorists (and thus came up from Mexico via the Somali-connected ship), was a false assumption. As Brolin's character is informed that the four bombers were "from New Jersey," he realizes that everything, from the kidnapping of the girl, to the two dozen or so dead corrupt Mexican cops (i.e. the convoy gun battle), to the public relations nightmare of the whole escapade. Brolin basically declares that they lost the "narrative," with the revelation of the domestic terrorism angle. In a sort of fourth-wall breaking commentary, Brolin stating that the narrative is lost also applies to the whole right-wing fantasy that the movie at first appeared to be. Informed that POTUS (i.e. President Trump, though he is not actually named), is shutting down the operation and that the girl and Del Toro must be silenced (read "killed") to keep the government's involvement quiet, Brolin declares the President a "coward," and sets out to disobey his orders.
The movie is subversive, but it may be too subtle for some viewers to see that. We see a bunch of drug gang-affiliated Mexicans get whacked, and a seemingly world-spanning terrorist plot to kill Americans that justifies a slam-bang action movie turn around and show the sham of the entire reason for the violence. The government got it all wrong, acted before the facts were all in, and created a worse situation. Brolin's government liaison even states the fact that "54 million Americans have relatives in Mexico." Note that she said "Americans," not "immigrants," not "aliens." This is a stark reminder of America's diversity and the special relationship this nation has always had with Mexico. While the movie starts out as a seemingly Trump-inspired piece of propaganda against Mexico and Mexicans and the fluid border situation, instead turns into an indictment of right-wing assumptions about a perceived threat from our southern neighbor.
This whole mess reminds one of the quote from Mexican President Porforio Diaz, " Poor Mexico, so far from God, so close to the United States."
Indeed.
As an aside, this Geek Reviewer did note that this is the third straight movie I have seen in the theater that starred Josh Brolin. He also played Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War, and Cable in the Deadpool sequel. Del Toro also plays a Marvel character, the alien Collector, in Guardians of the Galaxy and in Avengers: Infinity War. At some point, every living actor listed in IMdB will have appeared in a superhero movie. Just sayin'.
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