Sicario: Day of the Soldado Deserved a Better Theatrical Release

The Legacy of Sicario and the Rise of Its Sequel

When Denis Villeneuve’s Sicario was released in October 2015, it took audiences on a dark journey into the corrupt heart of the war on drugs. This was a film that wanted to make the viewer uncomfortable, and it tried to open their eyes to the murky morality at play in the United States’ battle with Mexican drug cartels. It didn’t let anyone off the hook with easy answers or a happy ending, and that helped it stick in people’s minds.

After its success, a sequel was greenlit. Screenwriter Taylor Sheridan agreed to pen another installment. Sheridan, a former actor best known for his stint on Sons of Anarchy, had broken out in a big way with Sicario, and has since gained popularity with shows like Yellowstone and Landman. The expectation was that Sicario 2 would be his first mega-hit, and it was a crying shame that it fizzled in theaters, because it deserved to find a bigger audience.

Continuation of the Story: Del Toro and Brolin’s Characters

When Sicario: Day of the Soldado was announced, it was expected that all three primary cast members would return. However, by November 2016, only Benicio Del Toro’s show-stealing Alejandro Gillick and Josh Brolin’s Matt Graver returned. In the first film, Graver was the point man in a shady operation to eliminate several Mexican cartels and install a Colombian drug business in the power vacuum. Gillick was tasked with helping accomplish that by assassinating Fausto Alarcón, the vicious Sonoran cartel leader who murdered his family.

In the sequel, though, the success of that mission can be called into question, because this time, Garver and his superiors attempt to instigate a war between rival cartels who have been sending suicide bombers across the border into the U.S. To light the conflict’s fuse, they stage a false flag operation to kidnap Isabel Reyes (Isabela Merced), the daughter of Sonoran leader Carlos Reyes. They also hire Gillick to assassinate a famous Matamoros cartel lawyer at the same time, knowing that both cartels will blame each other.

To Graver’s chagrin, though, this operation goes spectacularly sideways, with him and his team forced to kill 25 corrupt Mexican police officers after an ambush. In the wake of this chaos, the Secretary of Defense orders Graver to kill Gillick and Isabel, erasing any knowledge that America was involved in such a dangerous and illegal operation. Graver, conflicted over his orders to eliminate Gillick, gives him the task of killing Isabel, but the one-time prosecutor locates his conscience at a very inconvenient moment. He refuses to murder the girl and instead goes on the run with her, leading to an intense conclusion.

A Shift in Tone: More Action, Less Subtlety

When Sicario: Day of the Soldado hit theaters in June 2018, it was met with middling reviews and a lower box office tally than its predecessor. In normal circumstances, this wouldn’t be such a bad return for an adult-skewing, R-rated thriller, and it was only around $10 million less than the first movie made. However, the budget for the sequel was more substantial, and that meant profits were down.

The sequel was also received a lot less rapturously by critics and some fans. Villeneuve’s movie had split the difference between a moody arthouse thriller and an action flick with moments like the border scene. It did this all while showing the audience the true price of the war on drugs and the seedy underbelly of America’s intelligence agencies.

By contrast, Soldado, at least on the surface, was accused of being more concerned with gritty spectacle and hard-hitting gunplay. It didn’t have a more thought-provoking, politically relevant story, and many believed it lacked the artistry involved in the first film.

Interestingly, fans and critics weren’t the only ones who felt Soldado didn’t stack up well against its predecessor, even if it still hits hard. Two years after the movie’s release, Brolin himself appeared on Deakins’ own podcast and admitted that the sequel was lacking something crucial: namely, Villeneuve and Deakins’ participation. “For what it is, and I would say this to Stefano’s face, it’s a bigger scope and more action. For what it is, it’s wonderful. But there’s something really special about Sicario

The Weapons star noted that he even noticed how Villeneuve and Sollima’s camera choices led to vastly different experiences for the audience. “It’s a behavioral choice tonally: in camera placement, in lens choice, how subtle you can be,” he explained. “That’s the difference: with Soldado, you’re going, ‘Wow, wow,’ and with Sicario, you are leaning further into it.”

A Film That Deserved More Credit

Sicario: Day of the Soldado isn’t as strong as Villeneuve’s brooding original. However, that doesn’t mean it’s bad or somehow unworthy. Sure, there are bigger action scenes in the sequel, but it’s still not an ‘action movie’ per se. Instead, it’s still a thriller that delves into some timely political hot-button topics, and just like the first film, refuses to emerge with any easy answers. By the final scene, the audience is still uncertain where to place their allegiances in Sheridan’s morally fluid world.

At its core, the film was an attempt by Sheridan to do something different with the series, which may be why star Jeffrey Donovan once described it as a “standalone spin-off,” rather than a traditional sequel. Without Blunt’s Kate Mercer character in the mix, the movie lost its steadfast moral center, and that may have bothered some people. However, Sheridan’s choice to shift the audience POV to Isabel, the kidnapped daughter of a crime lord, while placing Gillick’s tarnished moral code at the center of the story was a masterstroke.

In truth, the relationship between Gillick and Isabel is the heart of Soldado, and their scenes are where it hits its highest points. At times, it feels very much like a classic Western. Gillick serves as the tortured old gunslinger doing his best to redeem his soul, and Isabel as the plucky young girl who grows to respect him. It’s True Grit meets Logan, filtered through Sheridan’s neo-Western lens, and that’s why, even though it disappointed in 2018, it’s actually a much better film than most people seem to remember.