Movie Review: "Sicario: Day Of The Soldado"

"Sicario: Day Of The Soldado": B.  With the plight of Mexican immigrants being an almost daily news item over the last several months, the setting for Sicario: Day Of The Soldado is timely.  The story overcomes several shortcomings to result in a movie most will find worth seeing if for no other reason than to give viewers an idea of the scope of problems facing both the migrants and the U.S. government, particularly the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Border Patrol.

The opening shot of federal agents in low flying helicopters combing the vast west Texas desert near the Rio Grande is grim and gripping.  The area is pitch black, pierced by the powerful search lights aboard the copters.  The humans below, presumably having illegally crossed the border/river moments before, appear as desperate prey, running away but with nowhere to go.  This is the first of many times Italian director Stefano Sollima successfully employs the unforgiving land as a central element to his film.

The feds' focus abruptly narrows from illegal immigration to terrorism when two explosions occur back-to-back.  The first happens in the desert in the aftermath of the helicopter pursuit. A suspect fleeing from the Border Patrol detonates his suicide vest, leaving prayer rugs -- likely evidence of his Muslim faith -- beneath his body.  The second takes place in a Kansas City supermarket, with scores of customers killed or injured by a band of terrorists who appear to be Middle Eastern.  Here is where the script writing gets a little dubious.  CIA agent Matt Graver (Josh Brolin) and his team deduce that the two incidents were perpetrated by men transported from the coastal waters of Somalia to Mexico, then on to the U.S.  They further conclude that a Mexican drug cartel must have been in cahoots with Somali war lords to pull off such unfettered trans-oceanic transportation.  Graver's solution is to start a war between the two leading cartels, a la gangland battles seen in The Godfather.  By the time that war ends, the cartels will be weakened.  This pretext to what the CIA orchestrates is not only far-fetched but, as we find out less than half way through the movie, erroneous.

One of Graver's first moves is to hire cold-blooded black operative Alejandro Gillick, played by the excellent Benicio del Toro.  [Note: Don't make the same mistake I've occasionally committed by confusing American actor Benicio del Toro with Mexican producer and director Guillermo del Toro.  The latter won two Oscars for his work in last year's The Shape Of Water (reviewed here on April 21, 2018; A-).]  Gillick's connections in Mexico smooth the way for the CIA to execute high profile crimes, an assassination and a kidnapping, staging both to appear as the work of opposing drug overlords, thus achieving the CIA's desired war between that country's two most powerful cartels.

The kidnap victim, Isabela Reyes (Isabela Moner), is the middle school age daughter of one cartel's leader.  The central story line concerns what happens while Isabela is in the custody of the CIA agents.  Their original plan to transport her swiftly by land north across the border does not go as planned; neither does their end game strategy.  Ironically the ruthless killer, Gillick, forms a protective bond with the young girl, while he and the detached Graver separate.

A subplot which eventually intersects with the main story arc is the saga of impoverished teen truant Miguel (Elijah Rodriguez).  He hangs out with an older crowd in the border city of McAllen, Texas.  They convince him that his bilingual skills will serve him well in the clandestine business of smuggling immigrants into the US.  Easy money.  Miguel is forced to grow up fast, getting in way over his head.

I am giving this movie a B, a solid B in fact, because it delivers plenty of tension, lots of gunfire and other high speed action, captivating cinematography, and most of all excellent acting.  Brolin and del Toro each have enough screen presence and machismo to carry this genre alone.  Put them together and you can be confident your money will be well spent.  Seventeen year old Moner is the real deal.  She is on the screen for at least half the movie, superbly handling a wide range of emotions and predicaments.  I hope filmmakers take note.

Unfortunately Sicario has a few problems of time and space which detract from the finished product.  For example, following a shootout in the middle of the Mexican nowhere, Graver jumps into a vehicle, does a U-turn and heads for Texas.  In the blink of an eye he is crossing on to American soil.  Meanwhile Gillick, who was in the same shootout with Graver, sets off on foot and spends days in the desert in an attempt to reach Texas.  Not even CIA spy satellites can detect his whereabouts.  In another scene, a man is shot in the middle of the night under a desert butte.  The men who are responsible are shown quickly leaving the scene in the morning sun.

The reputation of the CIA has taken several blows during the US "occupation" of Iraq.  Waterboarding and other forms of torture, mistreatment of prisoners (e.g., Abu Ghraib) and the killing of innocent civilians are some of the charges leveled against that agency and various defense contractors.  Sicario: Day Of The Soldato will not do anything to ameliorate the criticism.  In an early scene when the U.S. counter-terrorism strategy is being devised, the Secretary Of Defense tells Graver, "Dirty is exactly why you're here."  No kidding.  

Without the depiction of some CIA operatives' abhorrent behavior, the film probably would not have been made.  In real life, is such conduct necessary to win a war?  That is for others to determine.