Domestic terrorism has penetrated America’s borders, the jihad is causing havoc in the Midwest and it doesn’t play well politically, the hammer is about to be dropped but everything needs to be ‘off the books’ or if you like under the cloak of ‘plausible deniability’. You know, in case an elected official ends up in some closed door hearing before Congress. What did Schultz say in Hogan’s Heroes ‘I know nothing’.

So, who do you need if you want something done dirty?  Matt Graver (Josh Brolin), that CIA ghost who has access to offshore accounts that can pay for lethal drones, Blackhawks, weapons and manpower. Graver also enlists the services of Alejandro (Benico del Toro), the most deadly of Sicario’s as the terrorism trail has led the spooks south of the Mexican border, right into Cartel territory.

Missing this time around is Emily Blunt’s morally conflicted FBI agent, in a sense you could say Graver (Brolin) takes on the role of being conflicted, as the Department of Defense’s plan to create a war amongst the rival Drug Cartels has hit the fan, that’s left Graver with some very personal decisions to make, as in who lives and who dies.

One of the Drug lord’s 16-year-old daughters is mixed up in the chaos, Isabela (Isabela Moner), one day a private schoolgirl in Mexico City getting into schoolyard fights, the next caught up in a CIA/Cartel/Defense Department tug of war with deadly consequences.

Miguel (Elijah Rodriguez) a Mexican/American teenager living on the Texas side of the border is being recruited by one of the drug cartels to lead desperate refugees past the Border Police and into America.  It pays well but the decisions he makes will have an effect on everyone.

The original Sicario didn’t set the box office world on fire but screenwriter Taylor Sheridan had built up enough Hollywood goodwill with 2016’s ‘Hell or High Water’ and 2017’s ‘Wind River’ that ‘Day of the Soldado’ got the green light.

There are of course the prerequisite explosions, gunfire and indiscriminate killing, whilst Brolin and del Toro simmer along nicely, the real find here is Isabela Moner, a great young actress, watch out for her.  Is ‘Day of the Soldado’ as good as the original?  Hard to say, it’s different, not as eerily menacing as the first but probably even more action packed.

Either way it’s a great ride.

hallymustang rating : 📽📽📽📽 4/5