Ostensibly a standalone film, it's hard not to compare or uphold Day of the Soldado — a film that is objectively an unnecessary sequel — to the excellence and high standards of its predecessor, which is genetically superior in ever way. What makes the first film feel so special is how it depicts this dark world through the innocent and naive eyes of its central protagonist, played by Emily Blunt, whose absence in the standalone sequel is sorely felt.

Unfortunately, Day of the Soldado trades in any nuance, subtlety or humanizing elements for pure bleakness and brutality, which only goes to service the war on drugs' downhill footrace to the bottom, where no one emerges with any shred of dignity and everyone loses.

It begins as a paranoid conservative's nightmare with the cartel smuggling in jihadist suicide bombers to increase border security, and ergo driving up the price of drugs as a result. The U.S. response is to covertly retaliate in simulated cartel hits and by kidnapping a kingpin's daughter (played by Isabela Moner), who is the real humanizing heartbeat of the film, in hopes of disrupting the harmony of the cartel groups to provoke more violence that will only perpetuate the everlasting cycle of cartel violence...