Tag Archives: #sicario2

Month in Review: July ’18

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To encourage a bit more variety in my blogging posts and to help distance this site from the one of old, I’m installing this monthly post where I summarize the previous month’s activity in a wraparound that will hopefully give people the chance to go back and find stuff they might have missed, as well as keep them apprised of any changes or news that happened that month.

Don’t look now, but this past July I produced a whopping four new film reviews. That’s like, one or two more than what I put out the last several months, but it’s also not that much. Specifically, it is 14 less 10, the result of 100 divided by 25 and the square root of 16. I produced the square root of 16 number of reviews this month. That sounds somehow . . . better. In a perfect world (or, back in 2013/’14/’15) I would make sure those numbers were bare minimums for the month, but I can no longer make those assurances because, well . . .

I’m not very good at keeping schedules and I’m just as bad with commitment. Well, maybe not as bad. This past July, my blog of old (Digital Shortbread — a name I couldn’t quite abandon so I kept it as my URL! My Earl!) turned 7 years old. Forgive me for getting a little nostalgic here but I’m proud of that, because the journey has not always been easy. In fact the longer you do this I feel the greater the challenge becomes to find new inspiration. Like, this isn’t a personal problem of mine. Getting burned out is a really common occurrence. This actually brings me to an interesting question about the blogging process.

Before we get into that though, here is a quick glimpse at what has been going on on Thomas J during the last month.

New Posts

New Releases: Sicario 2: Day of the Soldado; Ant-man and the Wasp; Sorry to Bother You; Skyscraper

Five Most Anticipated Fall 2018 Releases

As we shift into the awards season (I know!), naturally there are going to be some priorities and as of right now, they look a little something like this (in no particular order):

  1. White Boy Rick (September 14) — the true story of the rise of America’s youngest drug kingpin-turned FBI informant. Stars Matthew McConaugh-hey as the father and Richie Merritt as Richard Wersche, Jr. From the director who brought you ’71.
  2. Venom (October 5) — with a face like Venom, who now can honestly say they don’t want to kiss Tom Hardy? The dude is stacking up an impressive list of villainous roles and in this anti-heroic origins story about one of Spider-man’s nemeses, he looks to leave a disturbing impression. Fingers and tongues crossed.
  3. First Man (October 12) — all you needed to say was Damien Chazelle and I’m there. But then you add to that the fact Ryan Gosling is re-teaming with his La La Land director on a project about astronaut Neil Armstrong (famous for something) and, well, I have no words other than . . . TAKE. MY. MONEY! This could be a classic.
  4. Beautiful Boy (October 12) — I’ll be honest here, the only thing I am using to build my expectations is the trailer for Beautiful Boy. It mesmerized me, offering up yet another dramatic role for Steve Carell in a drama about drug addiction, relapse and recovery — based on the memoirs from father and son David and Nic Sheff. Oscar nominee Timothée Chalamet will play Nic.
  5. Widows (November 16) — from the master of the gut-wrenching drama Steve McQueen, Widows tells the story of four women who join forces for a heist after their conmen husbands are killed during a botched robbery. Though the genre doesn’t necessarily scream “tough to watch,” I am anticipating another heavy-hitter. This is the director of 12 Years a Slave, Hunger and Shame, after all. This one is (probably) gonna get rough. Unless it doesn’t, and becomes something unlike anything he’s done before. Worth noting, too, is the absence of McQueen regular Michael Fassbender.

So with another month of frustration over and done with, I have to know —

What’s your writing process like? How do you set about filling up a blank page? How quick are you to the writing board after seeing a movie? Are you a throw-down-the-hammer type of producer — the kind to start and finish in an hour or do you labor over it over the course of several sessions? When do you feel most productive and accomplished?

Sicario: Day of the Soldado

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Release: Friday, June 29, 2018

👀 Theater

Written by: Taylor Sheridan

Directed by: Stefano Sollima

Starring: Benecio del Toro; Josh Brolin; Isabela Merced; Jeffrey Donovan; Manuel Garcia-Rulfo; Catherine Keener

Distributor: Sony Pictures Releasing

 

***/*****

What a vicious movie the awfully-tilted Sicario: Day of the Soldado is. Fortunately, at least with regards to quality, the content is not the title.

Italian-born director Stefano Sollima confidently carries the torch passed to him in what appears to be a bonafide crime saga anthology in the making. While Soldado indeed navigates the same ethical and tactical morasses Villeneuve established in his instant classic from 2015, it’ll be remembered more for its even bloodier, soul-bruising action bent. And yet, in the spirit of its predecessor and despite the absence of an audience surrogate like Blunt’s Special Agent Kate Macer, Soldado effects the thrill of privileged access to things we should not be witnessing.

In 2018 the game has changed and so have the rules. The war against the ruthless Mexican drug cartels has taken an even more nefarious turn. Rather than the smuggling of illicit drugs, the focus has shifted to the prevention of human trafficking — specifically the transporting of bomb-making desperadoes across the line. An opening salvo details in gut-wrenching fashion precisely what CIA black ops agent Matt Graver (Josh Brolin) and the enigmatic hitman Alejandro Gillick (Benecio del Toro) are up against this time. We experience first-hand in Kansas City the callousness with which the bad guys are able to dispatch with the innocent.

Graver, who specializes in getting his hands dirty, is called in by U.S. Secretary of Defense James Riley (Matthew Modine) for an assignment seemingly tailor-made just for him. Given such rampant violence, the American government has reclassified these gangs officially as terrorist organizations. Their objective now is to exacerbate tensions between the factions to the point where they simply wipe each other out. Victory by way of escalation, not extradition.

To get things rolling, Graver enlists his friend to carry out a ballsy false-flag operation involving the kidnapping of Isabel Reyes (a crushingly good Isabela Merced), daughter of the sadistic kingpin Carlos Reyes. The mission gets a bit more complicated/spoiler-rich but suffice it to say it doesn’t all go off without a hitch. Double-crosses and unexpected escapes crop up along the way, and it isn’t long before Graver and Gillick themselves question just what it is they are trying to accomplish. (And, as an aside, this is the coldest and most ruthless I have ever seen Catherine Keener. Consider me now a big fan.)

Crucially, Taylor Sheridan returns for this loosely-connected sequel. Once again his screenplay masterfully simplifies a lot of technical jargon without diluting the essence of the conversation. The gifted screenwriter is of course blessed with acting talent to match. Bad-boy Brolin feels at home in his über-niched role as a sandals-wearing DoD enforcer, while the aforementioned Keener and Modine lend incredible weight with their government agents standing at a safe distance. Del Toro may never have been quite this interesting (or this blood-caked). Meanwhile, the child actors — yes, absolutely Merced, but also introducing Elijah Rodriguez as the wayward Miguel — commit to their emotional load-bearing roles as consummate professionals.

Sheridan’s world-building also impresses. What else is new? He presents the labyrinthian network of black market dealers and uneasy relationships among different levels and loyalties of law enforcement as an ever-shifting landscape of personal vendetta and evolving objectivity. A lot of traveling is required and to exotic locations such as Djibouti and the Gulf of Somalia, and we hop back and forth across the border enough times to get dizzy. The director has to temporarily suspend reality in a few places to accommodate character arcs, but even with a few cut corners the main flow of the narrative rarely, if ever, exceeds our grasp — even while we shield our eyes from the more gory details.

Soldado isn’t as sophisticated a drama as what came before. This movie is more of a blunt instrument than a think piece, and it has no interest in being anyone’s friend. In almost any other production it would take some effort to justify this level of bloodshed. No, Soldado doesn’t exactly champion humanity, but it is a reflection of it. And yes, it should upset you. It should make you cringe, if not for Alejandro and friends then for the next generation caught in the crossfire.

Moral of the Story: Savage confrontations and a dearth of feel-good moments characterize this action thriller of above-average intelligence (poor titles notwithstanding). Soldado should satisfy fans of the original with its continuation of the same blood-soaked moral quandary established three years prior, even if a lot of nuance is lost in the transition. And the way this second chapter leaves you — left me, anyway — is nothing short of morbidly fascinating. I can’t wait for a third installment. 

Rated: hard R

Running Time: 122 mins.

Quoted: “You’re gonna help us start a war.”

“With who?”

“Everyone.”

All content originally published and the reproduction elsewhere without the expressed written consent of the blog owner is prohibited.

Photo credits: http://www.impawards.com; http://www.imdb.com