Sicario: Day Of The Soldado

DIRECTOR Stefano Sollima CAST Benicio Del Toro, Josh Brolin, Isabela Moner, Matthew Modine, Catherine Keener

PLOT After a US bombing is linked to Mexican people-smugglers, covert ops experts Graver (Josh Brolin) and Gillick (Benicio Del Toro) are enlisted to help the CIA incite war between rival cartels. However, when a druglord’s kidnapped daughter (Isabela Moner) is deemed expendable, the two men find themselves on opposing sides of a violent war.

APPRAISE THE DETAILS of this sequel to 2015’s drug war masterpiece — no Denis Villeneuve, no Roger Deakins, no Emily Blunt — and you’d be forgiven for hearing the steady klaxon of multiple alarm bells. Well, those warnings won’t sound for very long after the lights go down in the cinema. Sicario: Day Of The Soldado begins with one of the year’s most scintillating, pin-you-to-your-seat opening sequences (built around a suicide bombing scene that nails the chilling banality of modern terror) and only cranks things up from there. In fact, by the time the last bodies have fallen and the border country dust has cleared, the only thing really blotting this follow-up is a mildly frustrating ending.