'Sicario: Day Of The Soldado' Is A Scattershot Sequel

is a specimen of what might be called exploitation verité. This sequel to the grim-but-arty 2015 drug-war thriller has been stripped of many of its forebear's assets: Director Denis Villeneuve has been having work-wise to be lured back for this nonessential mission. Nor has at-long-last-Oscar-winning cinematographer Roger Deakins returned, nor principal actors Emily Blunt and Daniel Kaluuya. (hadn't yet made Kaluuya a came out, but he had a substantial part.) Blunt and Kaluuya were the audience surrogates in playing FBI agents whose eyes went wide when they saw what C.I.A. spooks and U.S. Special Forces operators were being allowed to do in their guerrilla campaign against the drug cartels in Juarez and elsewhere. They were rule-followers, tough but by-the-book.