There’s a lot to say about Sicario 2, the sequel to the 2015 film starring Emily Blunt. I remember coming away from the first installment thinking that I needed to watch the film again. My impression was that even though Emily Blunt’s character was supposedly the star, she was really just getting jerked around by the CIA and the personal vendetta of Benicio del Toro’s character. It turns out that might have been right, since Emily Blunt isn’t back for the sequel, which makes me think you should probably go and watch Edge of Tomorrow instead.
But, no, Sicario 2 is a good enough film. Benicio del Toro is getting up there into Denzel Washington acting chops territory, and by that I mean that it doesn’t matter what the movie is about, or what character he’s playing, both del Toro and Washington are always going to be pretty darn interesting to watch. Although, I have to say that I get a little annoyed at del Toro’s Spanish since, to my ear, it sounds like he’s a trying too hard to sound authentic. By that I mean, his accent sounds really good to an entitled academic who can’t speak Spanish, but to a person who actually can speak Spanish, his affected accent sounds a bit phony. But, I always lose out to the opinions of entitled academics who are too afraid to travel to a foreign country, so what do I know?
Josh Brolin is actually turning into an interesting actor as well. Ever since that Men in Black film where he tried to embody Tommy Lee Jones, he seems to have, well, started to embody Tommy Lee Jones. And honestly, Tommy Lee Jones is a damn good actor to try to embody. I wouldn’t be surprised if from now on all the Tommy Lee Jones roles started going to Josh Brolin. He marches around in shorts and crocks with a big beard like he doesn’t care about anything. They should make a movie where Tommy Lee Jones and Josh Brolin fight to the death. It’d be interesting.
So, Sicario 2 begins with a kind of problematic sequence where Islamic terrorists sneak across the border in Mexico to blow up some supermarkets in the United States. This is the sequence I couldn’t really understand, because usually a film like this which is engaging border uncertainty as a plot point, particularly in an era where our government is ripping families apart at the border, really shouldn’t start making things up about terrorists crossing the border to blow places up, because that’s never happened. Hey, if they wanted to show a bunch of white guys, born and raised in the US, going to shoot up a school, that would be fine because that actually has happened. But don’t go making things up about how the border has been used for terrorism in ways that it simply hasn’t.
That’s where the movie started, and, for me, including that scene made me question what the whole rest of the movie was about. Is this a film that aspires to make some broad sweeping comments on the human condition, or is it just an excuse to show off a bunch of American soldiers in high tech gear shooting a bunch of people in lower tech gear, and reaffirm unfounded prejudices?
The inclusion of Benicio del Toro is what complicates your assessment of this, because his character is really the only interesting figure in the whole film. Josh Brolin’s CIA agent is just a jerk fundamentally, although he has his moments when he veers into the “less of a jerk than the rest of the time” he’s still a jerk. There are really too many “oh-rah” moments to consider this film at all critical of the US, but then again the politician guy is portrayed as a slimy little weasel. Maybe Sicario 2 is just striving for accuracy-but that brings us back to the problematic terrorism at the border opening scene.
Del Toro doesn’t really have any loyalties to anyone in the film either, but he does a few things to show he’s a decent human being at least, plus, he’s the closest thing to a super hero in this film. When the whole US army has to flee with a job undone, del Toro’s like, “Just get out of here, let me do this all by myself and on foot.”
Yeah, overall, this is a pretty fun movie to watch, but those of you who like gun fights aren’t going to quite have enough to keep you entertained, and those of you who are only going because of Emily Blunt are going to be really angry. I guess it could be said that this is something of a complex movie, as I’m kind of left feeling like I need to go back and watch both of them again to fully understand it. However, the cynical side of me just thinks that the lack of an overall message is probably more do to laziness than any real effort of subtlety on the part of the writers or directors. My overall impression is very much colored by the choice to show the Mexican border being utilized to further Islamic terrorism, which I think is unfortunate. That choice on the part of the director makes it impossible for me to view any other directorial choices without considering it within the lens of propaganda. Too bad, because I’m not entirely certain that was the choice of the director, but then again, he put it in there, so I guess that’s what he wanted me to think.
Draw your own conclusions and mention them. I’d engage in debate on this.
