Sicario Day of the Soldado

MarioW · Jul 1, 2018

AMAGON said:
Question about plot

So after they kidnapped the girl from school and Josh Brolin's character is examining the camera footage after the incident and see's the cop killing the cartel.

Who or what did that scene represent as they made a big deal about it? They made it assume the cop is the leader of the cartel???

They didn't know where the leader of the cartel lived, so they were keeping an eye on outgoing calls from the incident area to trace that. In the same scene they basically clarified that the girl lived by herself in Mexico City in a mansion there, while he father lived elsewhere.

The cop that arrived on the scene was basically on the payroll for the cartel. He executed the bodyguards for screwing up, and then called the cartel boss (or probably one of his lieutenants) himself.

chicagocubsfan · Jul 1, 2018

The soundtrack was amazing. So good.

Yams · Jul 1, 2018

denx said:
we dont really know what Alejandro plans to do with that kid tho, so Im ok with that ending

the part where Alejandro tries to get up after being shot and pieces of his brain start to fall off his head had the whole audience wincing. Worth seeing in theaters to experience that crowd reaction imo

That was wet dirt

Aselith · Jul 1, 2018

denx said:
we dont really know what Alejandro plans to do with that kid tho, so Im ok with that ending

the part where Alejandro tries to get up after being shot and pieces of his brain start to fall off his head had the whole audience wincing. Worth seeing in theaters to experience that crowd reaction imo

That was caked dirt soaked in blood. I thought it was too at first

Chumley · Jul 2, 2018

The Driver said:
It's a good time but it's also definitely not too much like the first Sicario. Definitely feels like Sony wanted to turn this into a franchise but decided to make the last half of this one be all the sequel bait.

+ still don't get what stoked the desire for Alejandro to wanna protect Reyes daughter. They never really have a bonding moment and we basically only see her under stress from being kidnapped or being a brat at her school lol.

+ Mercer's change of heart and proving him to be in a little over his head was kinda strange too. Dude is presented as a super cynical but prepared spook and the first 3 hours of this franchise can be described as GRIM so I can see where the "Hollywood ending" complaints come from.

+ that ending lol. SO U WANNA BE A SICARIOOOOOO. Okkk haha. Alejandro even surviving was some booty, I know if Dennis did this flick it definitely would have had Mercer and Alejandro kill eachother in a macho death match but Sony needs that R rated franchise I guess.

+ action direction for the big shootout was kinda eh. The federal police are like 10 feet from these Tier 1 operators who are normally portrayed as super competent and they still shoot at eachother for what felt like a good minute before everyone is dead lmao.

+ Alejandro also got nothing cool to do or say outside of when he killed the lawyer working for Reyes and that got spoiled in the trailers! We needed another badass "QUIERES MORIR?!", "It was personal for me." or land of wolves monologue from him again.

If nothing else it's about as good looking of a flick considering Deakins and Villeneuve aren't behind the camera. Score was good too but I think it reused a lot from the OG?

7/10

The grenade scene was pretty fucking boss, but aside from that yeah he had fuck all to do. Brolin killed a ton of people though.

The last half of the film was basically setting up the third movie. Some shit will go down between Benicio and Brolin, and Kate Mercer is supposedly coming back too.

I liked the film a lot. Obviously not as much as the first but it sets up some interesting stuff for the third movie. The biggest flaw in this was its director, never fucking hire that dude to do a feature film again. The script, cinematography, and performances saved it.

sleepnaught · Jul 2, 2018

Enjoyed the first film a ton better, but this one was enjoyable. The movie sorta just leaves you with blue balls, though. All that hype and build up just for a "Find out next week!" ending.

PaddingtonDidntDoIt · Jul 2, 2018

First film was definitely better. Too many things happening.

This was a very dark movie though.

Chumley · Jul 2, 2018

Denis could have done something really special with this script. It's kind of even bleaker than the first but you wouldn't know it by watching the film.

Percival Sparkletrout · Jul 2, 2018

I saw this movie with my dad today. He loved the first one and has been really looking forward to it. I think we both left the theater kind of disappointed. The movie was kind of pointless, I thought. It sets up a whole bunch of stuff, and then pretty much goes nowhere with any of it. Like, absolutely nothing in this movie was resolved by the end.

And I really want to know,

How in the hell did Benicio get back across the border? Dude was nearly passed out from blood loss, had a hole in his face, likely had some serious damage done to his jaw, so I highly doubt he could even talk, was covered in blood, was in a car that was shot to hell and covered in blood, and had a small arsenal on him. What was he planning on even doing?

Pilgore · Jul 2, 2018

Sicario 2 did the one thing I feared it was going to do when I saw the trailers. Which is to portray Del Toro and Brolin's characters as the good guys and have it just be a straight action movie without any of the original's criticisms of unchecked governmental action with ambiguous morals. I don't want to spoil the movie but the story feels straight up like an Info Wars episode. It's a bad movie. Especially compared to the first one.

There are no "'heroes" in Sicario. Alejandro and Matt are monsters. Kate is naive and idealistic, but that's still better than unchecked government "heroes" doing "what needs to be done." Sicario is about borders. Both ethical and literal. Kate represents morality being tested. And it is at the end of the movie that it's made clear that none of it really matters as at the end of the day the shooting, violence and drug trafficking continues. Alejandro and Matt and their crusade is a useless endeavor. It's a nihilistic grim movie.

Soldado seems to just go like "yeahhhh....I guess...let's just...do an action movie." Which is super disappointing to me.

RatskyWatsky · Jul 2, 2018

Apparently the director completely changed the second half of the movie, including the ending, from what it was in Sheridan's original script.

Addleburg · Jul 2, 2018

Saw it tonight. The film is mediocre. So many unnecessary and uninteresting characters , plot threads that go nowhere, uninterestingly composed shots, and character 180s from the first. My friends and I joked that Jeffrey Donovan was the only character that actually seemed consistent from the first.

If the first one didn't exist it'd still just be an average film. It really did feel like it had nothing to say. In the end, it just made me wanna rewatch the first, which I'll probably do this week.

RatskyWatsky said:
Apparently the director completely changed the second half of the movie, including the ending, from what it was in Sheridan's original script.

I saw this posted elsewhere on here. Do you have a link confirming this? Or did people just get their hands on the screenplay?

Beer Monkey · Jul 2, 2018

I loved the first movie; this sounds absolutely awful from every post where the poster actually describes the film. Skipping it.

RatskyWatsky · Jul 2, 2018

Addleburg said:
I saw this posted elsewhere on here. Do you have a link confirming this? Or did people just get their hands on the screenplay?

I just saw it here on too, haha. But not in this thread so I thought I'd post it so people might better understand why they felt certain plot threads went nowhere or had issues with the ending.

Deleted member 2533 · Jul 2, 2018

I've been wondering about some things...

Catherine Keener orders del Toro dead because all the loose ends need to be tied. Turns out del Toro lives and then... goes back to work for the government?

Catherine Keener orders the girl dead for the same reasons. Brolin brings her back to "witness protection." So... she testifies against the police being in the cartels? In Mexico? Or is she just hidden in the US for... reasons?

The US Govt. performing clandestine kidnapping actions and killing police in Mexico that the POTUS and everyone was eating shit over gets... smoothed over somehow?

Yeah, everything was completely fubar from a political and operational standpoint, the daughter of a Mexican cartel boss is brought out of, into, and back out of Mexico, then "ONE YEAR LATER," "so you wanna be a Sicario," "THE END."

I feel like some questions that were raised were left hanging...

The Driver · Jul 2, 2018

I believe

the mother of the daughter lives in the States?

Deleted member 18025 · Jul 2, 2018

Sooo... you wanna be a Sicario huh?

This is worse than that Last of Us line

Scullibundo · Jul 2, 2018

Put a spoiler tag on that Freshcakes.

thediamondage · Jul 3, 2018

There is a lot of plot holes that really make this movie a bit of a mess. As an action movie its ok, nothing spectacular but not terrible or anything. As a thoughtful commentary on US/mexico relations, undocumented immigrants crossing the border and that being the majority source of Cartel money and the visibility of it in US citizens daily lives, terrorism, war on drugs, corruption in the Mexican government, etc its not really good at all.

Some things that kinda irked me about the movie

Why did they want to return the girl via this super convoluted method??? There is a brief convo between Brolin and a mexican government official (he was in Sicario too, friend of Alejandro) about how they will get police support, that the area they are going into is controlled by a rival cartel, that the girls father will be able to pick her up but he may not be able to get her out from the drop off point, etc.

Why the fuck wouldn't you just stick her on a normal airplane and drop her off at Mexico City, San Diego, Amsterdam, Rio, or a million other cities and let her dad deal with her? Their cover was PERFECT up until the point they decided to do this idiotic convoy thing deep into Mexican territory with her. Some rando cartel group kidnapped her in Mexico, took her into the USA, and the DEA raided and killed all the people involved and rescued her. Nobody would question that unless you did something stupid like bring a bunch of commandos into Mexico to escort her. Who was shooting at them in Mexico? A rival cartel must be, because her own dad wouldn't try to kill her?

Its so disappointing we get virtually no cartel scenes, just underling scenes dealing with smuggling people.

Is people smuggling really more lucrative than the drug trade? My understanding is that the drug trade brings $20-30b in profit on drugs on sales of ~$60b. I just don't see how people smuggling tops that, especially with numbers getting lower every year. Obvious marijuana legalization must be hurting the cartel but still.

Sicario ended with the idea that they wanted the Mexican cartels to be under the Medellin (Columbian) cartel since its easier to control 1 group, what happened to that idea?

What was the deal with the terrorists? They found 3 prayer mats in the desert, suggesting that the 3 who blew up came in that way. But then they turned out to be US citizens... so did they come through the south via the cartel or just board planes like normal and the prayer mats a total misdirect (an incredibly SILLY one)? Was the 4th guy (who died at the start) supposed to be part of that group and didn't make it? Was he also a US citizen? I get the "misdirect" of hardcore ISIS fighters cannot be allowed into the US wily-nilly so "kill the Cartel", but saying suddenly "Oh fuck, they were Americans all along" doesn't really explain or change much? The cartel still allowed a guy from a boat from the middle east to cross over and thats just really stupid business for them. Its just confusing as hell.

The director going in his own direction for the second half of the movie would sorta be disappointing if true but the movie overall wasn't written as well as the first one, even the first half.

EloquentM · Jul 3, 2018

No payoff and stupid decisions: the movie

Deleted member 16365 · Jul 3, 2018

Good movie. Shit title.

Poutine Runner 2049 · Jul 3, 2018

Saw it with some friends and we were all less than impressed. The storytelling was messy and hard to follow at times not to mention it did not have the gripping dread of Denis or the striking cinematography of Deakins.

If the first Sicario was a 9-9.5 unique and gripping movie, then Soldado was a 6.0 generic action movie.

Trey · Jul 3, 2018

cj_iwakura · Jul 3, 2018

I enjoyed it, especially during the second act... but it felt like it had too many plots going on. We get the cartel and the daughter and the father who we never see and the group at the end...

Yeeeeesh. Tighten your copy.

It was gripping though, no lie.

Kusagari · Jul 3, 2018

Can someone explain what the hell the point of the Somalia plot point was? Was that guy actually helping terrorists get to Mexico?

cj_iwakura · Jul 3, 2018

Kusagari said:
Can someone explain what the hell the point of the Somalia plot point was? Was that guy actually helping terrorists get to Mexico?

Supposedly, I'm not really sure.

Regarding the cartel war, I think it was just supposed to cause so much chaos that it would distract them from messing with the States.

Akileese · Jul 3, 2018

Pilgore said:
Sicario 2 did the one thing I feared it was going to do when I saw the trailers. Which is to portray Del Toro and Brolin's characters as the good guys and have it just be a straight action movie without any of the original's criticisms of unchecked governmental action with ambiguous morals. I don't want to spoil the movie but the story feels straight up like an Info Wars episode. It's a bad movie. Especially compared to the first one.

There are no "'heroes" in Sicario. Alejandro and Matt are monsters. Kate is naive and idealistic, but that's still better than unchecked government "heroes" doing "what needs to be done." Sicario is about borders. Both ethical and literal. Kate represents morality being tested. And it is at the end of the movie that it's made clear that none of it really matters as at the end of the day the shooting, violence and drug trafficking continues. Alejandro and Matt and their crusade is a useless endeavor. It's a nihilistic grim movie.

Soldado seems to just go like "yeahhhh....I guess...let's just...do an action movie." Which is super disappointing to me.

One of the reviews I saw said without the Kate type character, the whole thing just sorta feels like a mess since you don't have that moral compass. Even if she's naive and idealistic, she's basically you the viewer going "why are you doing these terrible fucked up things?". Hearing that they're attempting to make Del Toro and Brolin the good guys is...disheartening to say the least. I'll probably still see it, but my expectations have been lowered significantly.

cj_iwakura · Jul 3, 2018

Akileese said:
One of the reviews I saw said without the Kate type character, the whole thing just sorta feels like a mess since you don't have that moral compass. Even if she's naive and idealistic, she's basically you the viewer going "why are you doing these terrible fucked up things?". Hearing that they're attempting to make Del Toro and Brolin the good guys is...disheartening to say the least. I'll probably still see it, but my expectations have been lowered significantly.

They're hardly 'good guys', just the main characters.

Chumley · Jul 3, 2018

Yeah I don't think this movie portrays Alejandro and Matt as good guys. They're still the same people from the first movie, and Matt's turn at the end read more as a result of anger and frustration than him becoming a "good guy".

Zelenogorsk · Jul 4, 2018

Saw it today and I thought it was great. The lack of Villeneuve, Deakins, and Johannsson worried me but I ended up being surprised at how well made it was despite those 3 absences. The film looked great and the set pieces were tense as hell. del Toro and Brolin were great (as expected) and the girl who played Isabela was amazing. I also thought the kid that played Miguel was excellent.

If I had any criticisms they would be that the score is alright but it's nothing compared to the music from the first film, and the last 5 minutes were weird.

It seems like Brolin and del Toro had fun making this and I'd love for them to get back together for another one.

Also I thought it was pretty cut and dry that in this movie the US military are the bad guys, Matt and Alejandro included.

BBboy20 · Jul 4, 2018

Van Bur3n said:
Is it as much of a thriller as the first? I just watched the first last night on TV and I thought it was phenomenal. Saw the trailers for this one and it looks more action-packed.

Well, i suppose it has more action but how it's depicted is still as authentic as the first.

Blue Lou · Jul 4, 2018

I wonder what changes were made to the script.

Reyes' daughter being in witness protection seemed to be a 'happy ending' / a change. Alejandro of the previous film wouldn't have let her live any longer than necessary.

Sub Level · Jul 4, 2018

cj_iwakura said:
They're hardly 'good guys', just the main characters.

This. You're not supposed to root for them so much as you're supposed to understand why they do what they do. Up to viewer if is moral or not. For example, unlike an episode of 24, this movie has torturing bad guys but doesnt tell you "hurr this is the only way to save america!"

Riderz1337 · Jul 4, 2018

Arttemis said:
This fucking movie lost the plot.

The first movie went from a scathing insight into drug cartels to a sequel reveling in masturbatory violence by and to brown people.

This fucking released on the day of a domestic shooting of a news agency by a white male, while the nation is dealing with thousands of children housed in concentration camps after being traumatically ripped from their families, and the movie chooses to frame the entire narrative around radical Islamic terrorists crossing the border?

Utterly beyond disappointing. Fucking disgusting.

America = the world.

So don't release the movie cause of some crazy shit going on in your country? The world does not revolve around the US.

Addleburg · Jul 4, 2018

cj_iwakura said:
They're hardly 'good guys', just the main characters.

Sub Level said:
This. You're not supposed to root for them so much as you're supposed to understand why they do what they do. Up to viewer if is moral or not. For example, unlike an episode of 24, this movie has torturing bad guys but doesnt tell you "hurr this is the only way to save america!"

I agree that they're not good guys, but I disagree that you're not supposed to root for them. They really softened who they are and what they represented from the first one. I went into it expecting that they wouldn't even acknowledge that Del Toro

killed two kids

in the first one and sure enough they didn't.

Brolin's character does bad stuff, but in this one it's often presented as being necessary in order to stop something larger and potentially more dangerous. And both Del Toro and Brolin choosing to

put their jobs and lives on the line to save the girl / abandon a direct order to do otherwise

also felt like an erasure of who they were originally and seemed like an attempt to make us see their humanity. It'd be like them doing a sequel to Nightcrawler, but this time Jake Gyllenhaal is going around documenting disadvantaged kids in order to raise money for them.

It's fine if that's the route they want to go with this one, but it came off as a bit lame to me. They may not be the good guys, but they're not really anti-heroes, either.

Prolepro · Jul 4, 2018

Gotta say it was interesting watching this in a packed theatre on July 4 of 2018.

As far as the movie itself goes, as expected it was completely unnecessary, yet not wholly unfulfilling. Without the legacy of the first movie attatched, it wouldve been mildly entertaining to put on the TV when nothing else is on.

Fancy Clown · Jul 4, 2018

Pretty fucking bad outside of some of the setpieces.

"So I heard you wanna be a Sicario" drew audible laughs. One of the worst endings I've seen in a while.

crimsonheadGCN · Jul 4, 2018

I liked the first one more than part 2. Part 2 was decent and I hope 3 is way better.

Deleted member 6173 · Jul 4, 2018

Just got back from watching this. I really liked the whole global aspect of the plot and the build up. I didn't like the lone wolf and cub aspect, but it served a purpose. Did not expect to see Alejandro get shot in the face like that. I didn't mind the ending, thought it was pretty cool.

IDreamOfHime · Jul 4, 2018

The 1st one is a stone cold classic, but I still enjoyed this. The story was still gripping and the acting was fantastic...and the music? Holy shit, so good.
Look for forward to a third at some point.

lazybones18 · Jul 5, 2018

Saw this earlier today. Decent, but obviously not as good as the first. Did find one scene from the side-plot very interesting

When the boy was done with his first border-crossing assignment and got into the vehicle with the white lady and her infant child. My immediate thought was "now that is white-privilege". Nice white lady driving around at night with her kid and a Mexican teen. Nobody would suspect a thing :p

I'd be down for a third movie. Just hope it could closely match the first one

Zygnosis · Jul 5, 2018

Awesome sequel. One of the best ones ever made. It's brutal, thick, dark, Brolin and Del Toro are outstanding... the atmosphere is really dark, even deranged. That opening scene is almost beyond anything ever seen. Sick.

Too bad Sollima or Villeneuve won't direct the third one.

Jason's Ultimatum · Jul 5, 2018

The navy seal scene from the air to the ground was AWESOME.

LycanXIII · Jul 5, 2018

Dr.Acula said:
I've been wondering about some thin
gs...

Catherine Keener orders del Toro dead because all the loose ends need to be tied. Turns out del Toro lives and then... goes back to work for the government?

Catherine Keener orders the girl dead for the same reasons. Brolin brings her back to "witness protection." So... she testifies against the police being in the cartels? In Mexico? Or is she just hidden in the US for... reasons?

The US Govt. performing clandestine kidnapping actions and killing police in Mexico that the POTUS and everyone was eating shit over gets... smoothed over somehow?

Yeah, everything was completely fubar from a political and operational standpoint, the daughter of a Mexican cartel boss is brought out of, into, and back out of Mexico, then "ONE YEAR LATER," "so you wanna be a Sicario," "THE END."

I feel like some questions that were raised were left hanging...

He was working for the government at the end. No idea how he got back over, but he was there just for the kid.

The Driver said:
I believe

the mother of the daughter lives in the States?

That was just a lie they were going with if they got questioned when crossing the border.

Deleted member 2533 · Jul 5, 2018

LycanXIII said:
He was working for the government at the end. No idea how he got back over, but he was there just for the kid.

I was thinking that too, but it really did seem like

a recruitment pitch.

NinjaScooter · Jul 5, 2018

I went in expecting it to be terrible after some of the impressions. It definitely wasn't in the same league as the first film, but it was still enjoyable.

There was an audible laugh in the theatre at the end when

it says a year later and the little punk ass twerp kid is walking around with the fakest looking tattoos

LycanXIII · Jul 5, 2018

I'm expecting in the third one that

There's a war between Brolin and Del Toro. Please don't bring back the kid either.

Jokab · Jul 6, 2018

I really didn't like this movie at all. Sooo many plot holes and stupid motivations. Huge stepdown after the incredible first movie.

Deleted member 8118 · Jul 6, 2018

I'm going to see this movie now. As a big fan of the first, I'm excited. I watched the first Sicario dozens of times.

There's themes in the first Sicario that I think not many noticed, so I'm going to look out for them.

Tux_ · Jul 6, 2018

Enjoyed it just as much as the first.

Fucking love the tone of the film, it was very dark.

Sicario Day of the Soldado

PikPok

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account

Are we human or are we dancer?

Are we human or are we dancer?

User requested account closure

User requested account closure

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account

One Winged Slayer

Ghostwire: BooShock

User-requested account closure

User requested account closure

User requested account closure