FBI agent Matt Graver calls on mysterious operative Alejandro Gillick when Mexican drug cartels start to smuggle terrorists across the U.S. border. The war escalates even further when Alejandro kidnaps a top kingpin's daughter to deliberately increase the tensions. When the young girl is seen as collateral damage, the two men will determine her fate as they question everything that they are fighting for.
To sum this film up in one word, I would probably use the word 'strange'. Sicario 2: Return of Soldado is the story of a US government group who attempt to kidnap a Mexican drug lord's daughter and then give her back as another cartel in order to create a drug war. That's what I took from the film anyway. The film really is difficult to review, simply due to the fact that one minute, it produced some amazing scenes and then the next, everything was thrown away as if that had never happened. However there were plenty of good elements to the film, so let's start with them.
First of all, one thing that I feel this film did exceptionally well was to add in twists and unexpected events into the plot. The main example for me was the suicide bomber at the beginning. Not only did this instantly shock the audience but it also gave an implication into the type of film that it was, and really set the scene and plot down well for the audience. It was clear from the very beginning that this would be a battle involving terrorism and the Middle East. And again, more explosions during the supermarket scene not only created tension, but spread it around the audience and kept the audience unsure of what would happen next and kept them guessing. Despite these scenes maybe not getting a positive reaction, I still feel that they helped the film to engage with the audience well, they sent a powerful message to the audience as well as the characters, regarding the type of enemy that they would be up against. Although I was slightly unsure as to whether 4 explosions in the supermarket were really that necessary, due to the fact that the effect had already been used to surprise and stun the audience. On another note, I was really impressed with the beginning sequence of this film. I feel that it really set up the film nicely, a great set of scenes also helped with this too. I always like when a film has some text at the start to simply set the scene, I feel that it is a small touch that has a big impact. And here it was especially effective at setting the scene for the beginning of the film. The manner in which audio and these tense scenes were combined together was superb. Similarly to the suicide bomber scene, not only did it help to convey the situation on the screen to the audience and send across the message of pressure but it managed to maintain this, even when the scene wasn't necessarily tense. The use of a slow audio helped to build up scenes too and to 'cool down' the audience well, and this mixed in with a variety of different musical sounds to represent not only the mood but the location really was effective and helped to create a certain mood across the audience that the producers intended. Linking to the moods from the film, I feel that there were many that were essentially thrown at the audience, a mixture of scary, tense, confusion and sadness were all emotions that were thrown around. Not necessarily executed in the best possible manner in relation to timings and what was currently happening on screen, but I enjoyed the fact that this film was not simply a violent killing film, but instead we saw a different side to some of the characters when the plot maybe didn't turn out as we expected it to. I always like when we as an audience get to see multiple perceptions of a character as it helps to build them up as an actual character, which in turn can be relayed to the audience to create a temporary bond. It just generally helps to create an ecosystem in which the audience feel as if they actually know the characters on screen personally.
The use of camera angles and shots to film the various different locations was great, for each new location, the audience were given a pan shot to show what kind of place the characters were i. This just gave the audience a better implication of the feelings within the film, which was relayed to the audience well. I liked seeing the vast number of locations within the film too and it really seemed to help with the plot of the film and to understand the characters in the sense that we could see how the they felt during different scenarios. For example when this feeling of being uncomfortable in a location was felt by the character, 9 times out of 10 this was exactly the same as how the audience felt. A small, run down village in the middle of a desert would make many people uncomfortable and seeing the characters react to these locations just evoked much more of a reaction. Like I covered, the use of plot twists in this film (and there were many) was excellent, not only did it keep the audience guessing but it also kept them on their toes regarding how events would play out and what would happen to the main characters within the film. These plot twists were definitely what kept the film interesting and kept the audience sitting on the edge of their seats - desperate to know what happens next.
However, as I said at the beginning, this film was very confusing and somehow seemed to be both amazing and awful at the same time which was surprising! The main problem that I had with this film, was the establishment of characters and the plot. These were absolutely awful. I spent a good hour trying to work out who the characters were in the film, what their role was and what was going on in regards to the plot. The suicide bombing scenes were very engaging yes, but then when we are taken into Mexico, regarding drug cartels and gangs, and this just posed the question of why even include the beginning sequence? It had no reference to the rest of the story and it felt as if it was only used within the film to evoke a reaction and gain the audiences attention. Regardless of the great emotional relationship some of these scenes created with the audience.
Good films guide the audience through the plot and introduce the characters, but this film did neither. Characters seemed to be appearing throughout the film without an introduction and this just caused chaos in this respect, simply because I had no idea of who was who and the role that they played in the film. And to add further insult to injury ,we witnessed two characters talking about Mexicans, and then the next scene involved one of the characters actually starting to smuggle them over the border with no reference or point at all! There were many of these smaller stories within a big story, and this really did not help the film at all in the sense of having a clear structure and plot. As I left the cinema, I saw other people from the audience asking what the importance of some of the parts were and what they meant, which shows that it was not just me who didn't understand some parts of the film. I just feel that the plot for this film was so confusing, that I actually spent more time trying to decipher the story instead of actually watching the film and this is what ruined it for me.
There were other small issues I had with the film, as to why everyone seemed to speak English perfectly well (apart from the deaf man), even a teenage Mexican girl and her principal and it just didn't help to make the film believable and engaging. For me, a good film needs to have a strong and secure plot, a good introduction with the characters and a series of events that create an emotional bond between the audience and both the plot and characters. Not only to understand the film, but also to have a long lasting effect and to really make the characters interesting to the audience. Sicario 2 maybe scratched the surface of making the characters interesting and apart from Alejandro who just seemed to have an interesting vibe about him, none of the other characters seemed to interest me at all.
Overall I would rate this film a 6.5. I cannot ignore the powerful start to the film and the great way that the film set the scene for the audience but films are made to be watched, and instead of properly watching it, I was trying to decipher who the characters were and what was going on in the plot. Which ruined the film for meand was a strong sign of a poorly made film.
Thank you for reading my review, I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing this review. I hope you have a lovely day! :)
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