Sicario 2: Day of the Soldado (2018)

Elevator Pitch: Time has passed since the CIA special ops guys had faced up to the Mexican drug cartels, who are now engaged in people smuggling. When it seems that ISIS terrorists, smuggled into the US, have carried out bombings it is time to get the band together. To promote a war between cartels, Gillick and Graver kidnap the teenage daughter of Carlos Reyes and then pretend to rescue her, apparently from a cartel which is a rival to Reyes. They then take her back into Mexico in an armoured convoy, to deliver her to her father but on the way they are ambushed by rogue Mexican police. They kill all the police, but the girl escapes into the desert. Leaving Gillick to track her, Graver returns with the squad to Texas, where he learns that the operation has been pulled and that Gillick and the girl are to be eliminated. What to do?

Content: No sex or nudity or much drinking or smoking. Many confrontations with automatic weapons, starting with a night attack by special forces on a terrorist camp in Somalia. Graver is often in conference with his leader Cynthia Foards and remotely with the Secretary of defence. Once the major attack on Graver’s Humvee convoy has taken place Isabel, the girl, and Gillick are seen trogging across the desert, getting help from a isolated rancher and then pretending to be Mexicans trying to get into America. They are recognised by a young man from a border town who aspires to be a “coyote” a people smuggler, and captured by the cartel.

A View: This film was moderately well liked by quite a few critics and might have made a bit of money, depending on who you believe about the costs. There is a grain of truth in it. Apparently the Americans really have targeted the cartels in an attempt to reduce or eliminate people smuggling, but going after their money rather than their people. Like the first film there is constant tension and absolutely no humour to break the grim presentation, probably rightly, and you can really believe that the CIA guys with the guns can outshoot anybody the come across. So probably a watch for nothing, but you have to pay attention.

Josh Brolin has been the tough guy in a number of other films reviewed on this site including the first Sicario film, No Country for Old Men and the alarming American version of Old Boy.