Sicario: Day of the Soldado

The first thing I remember about watching Sicario: Day of the Soldado wasn't the plot or the politics; it was the sound. That low, mourning-cello thrum from composer Hildur Guðnadóttir feels like it’s vibrating in your molars. I actually watched this for the first time on a Tuesday night while eating a bowl of cereal that had gone slightly soggy because I was too distracted by the opening suicide bombing sequence to actually take a bite. It’s a mean, uncomfortable, and punishingly loud movie that manages to be a sequel to a masterpiece without ever trying to be a "better" version of its predecessor.

When Denis Villeneuve’s Sicario hit in 2015, it felt like a lightning strike—a high-art meditation on the futility of the drug war. Soldado, directed by Stefano Sollima, strips away the prestige-drama layer and leans directly into the "Sheridan-verse" grit. Written by Taylor Sheridan (the man now synonymous with the Yellowstone empire), this film doesn't care about the moral soul of a protagonist like Emily Blunt. Instead, it lets the wolves off the leash.

A Meaner Shade of Gray

The story picks up with Josh Brolin as Matt Graver, looking even more like a man made of sandpaper and tactical gear than he did in the first film. When the U.S. government suspects Mexican cartels are smuggling terrorists across the border, Graver is told to start a war between the factions. He recruits the "operator" Alejandro, played by Benicio del Toro with a terrifying, quiet intensity that suggests he hasn’t slept since the 90s.

What I love about this era of contemporary action is how it handles these "legacy" characters. They aren't heroes; they are tools that have been used so often they’ve lost their edge. Benicio del Toro is the heart of the film, specifically when he’s paired with Isabela Merced (then credited as Isabela Moner), who plays the kidnapped daughter of a cartel kingpin. Their dynamic shifts the movie from a geopolitical thriller into something closer to a dark, modern western. Isabela Merced is fantastic here, holding her own against del Toro’s silence with a performance that feels jagged and raw.

The Physics of the Ambush

Action in the late 2010s often fell into the trap of "shaky-cam" chaos, but Sollima and cinematographer Dariusz Wolski (a Ridley Scott regular) keep things strikingly clear. There is a mid-film ambush involving a police escort and a dusty desert road that is arguably the best action set piece of 2018.

The choreography isn't about flashy martial arts; it’s about the terrifying physics of heavy metal and high-caliber rounds. You feel the weight of the Humvees as they lurch off-road. You see the way the dust hangs in the air, obscuring the line between "friend" and "enemy." It’s essentially a high-budget Call of Duty mission with better acting, and I mean that as a genuine compliment. The film prioritizes tactical realism—the way Jeffrey Donovan (playing the eternally cool Steve Forsing) checks his peripheral or the specific "thud" of a suppressed rifle. It feels expensive and grounded in a way that many streaming-era action movies, with their flat lighting and CGI explosions, completely fail to replicate.

The Cult of the Border Noir

While it didn't reach the "instant classic" status of the first film, Soldado has developed a serious cult following among fans of "Hard Men Doing Hard Things" cinema. It’s a film that exists in the crosshairs of current discourse—released during the height of real-world border wall debates—yet it feels strangely detached from any specific partisan agenda. It’s just cynical. It views the world as a place where the "good guys" are just the ones with the bigger satellite budget.

Apparently, Benicio del Toro and Josh Brolin had a lot of input on the script, often stripping away dialogue to let the silences do the heavy lifting. Del Toro famously pushed to have his character speak even less than in the first film, believing that a ghost doesn't need to explain himself. This "less is more" approach is why the film works; it trusts that you’re smart enough to follow the plot through a glance or a gear shift.

There are some messy bits, for sure. The subplot involving a teenage smuggler feels a bit like it’s waiting for a third movie that hasn't happened yet, and the ending is a massive "to be continued" tease that might frustrate you if you want a neat bow on your stories. But in an era of franchise bloat, I appreciate a sequel that decides to be a gritty, standalone character study disguised as a summer blockbuster.

Sicario: Day of the Soldado is a rare beast: a sequel that swaps out the poetic dread of the original for a more visceral, tactical nihilism. It doesn’t have the "prestige" polish of Villeneuve, but it makes up for it with a relentless pace and two of the coolest performances in modern action history. It’s a film about the consequences of breaking the rules, even as it revels in the chaos of doing so. If you’ve got two hours and a high tolerance for tension, it’s a mission worth taking.