Sicario: Day of the Soldado brings back some of the first movie’s cast to put them into another thrilling battle in the U.S.-Mexico border situation. In this follow-up movie, it is all about stopping a human trafficking ring at the border. As with the first movie, it is also about the U.S. government sending in specialists to incite increased fighting between the various cartels.

The movies are interesting since they show a more realistic depiction of the U.S. military’s action, where the United States will do some underhanded and often immoral things to achieve its goals. The movies also have some intense action scenes, often with U.S. military forces heading into enemy locations with orders to kill everyone they encounter. A former Navy SEAL sat down to watch Sicario: Day of the Soldado and break down what the Taylor Sheridan movie got right and wrong in its depiction of the fight scenes.

Navy SEAL Expert Praises Sicario: Day of the Soldado For Its Realism

DJ Shipley Trains Soldiers For Close-Quarter Fighting

Former Navy SEAL DJ Shipley served in the military for 17 years and now works for a company training people for intense battle situations. This makes him someone who can sit down to watch scenes in action movies and realistically look at what works and what doesn’t when it involves the fighting action. He has looked at movies with unrealistic fighting sequences, like the John Wick franchise and Nobody, and also looked at more intense films like The Beekeeper and Sicario: Day of the Soldado.

Shipley discussed what fighting actions are realistic, what would never work in a real gun battle or fight, and whether it even matters in the course of a specific movie. For example, when breaking down John Wick’s gunplay in those movies, Shipley admits it is completely unrealistic, but in the world of John Wick, it doesn’t matter. However, for a movie like Sicario: Day of the Soldado, it is important to look realistic since it is based on real-world military excursions. Shipley looked at the scene with the military going in and killing people in a small building.

“All these guys are flowing in behind, but you’re not just all bum-rushing the entire thing because it’s slow and methodical. So the first four guys, whatever, make entry, start doing it, and everybody else is kind of in reserve, and they’re slowly but surely creeping up. So, there’s not a big delay or a gap. But, you’re not going to storm the castle with 12 guys. A lot of times, it’s easier to solve it with less people than it is more. If you throw 45 people at that problem, it’s a nightmare. I’d rather take four than 40.

You got half the guys at high ready. Some of the guys at low ready. It’s really all in the unit discretion. So, the high ready, you know, if I have a carbine, I keep it at the high port. For me, I like it better in тιԍнт confined spaces, because I can ready the gun faster. If I have it at low port configuration, I have to bring it up and around to get into configuration.

A lot of units, they only run in high port. So, if you watch them do CQB (Military Close Quarters Battle), this is a ready position. They drive it out; they engage. A lot of the other units, they keep it at a low port. Both have pros and cons. It all just depends on the style and how rapidly you can deploy them.

Nods and a laser are definitely the most crucial elements for nighttime CQB. You have to have night vision to see at night. You have to have a laser to have an aiming device and to provide the illumination that you don’t have inside of your reality. So, a lot of things you can get away with in nighttime CQB, being slow or being super-super quiet, sometimes in broad daylight, it’s the reverse. Everything is about how much noise you can mitigate.”

What This Means For Sicario: Day of the Soldado

Sicario Is Expected To Be Realistic With Its Gritty Action

At the end of the video discussion, DJ Shipley gave Sicario: Day of the Soldado a nine out of ten for the realistic action in this scene. Shipley looked at the way the soldiers carried their guns, the ᴅᴇᴀᴅly silence that they moved with to ensure they got their kills without altering anyone of their presence, and the way they moved in smaller units to make it easier to get the mission done without causing more problems than they were solving.

Shipley moved on after that to talk about Nobody, which was much less realistic, but is a movie he did compliment for making the hero someone who wasn’t the most competent based on his age. However, in a film like Sicario: Day of the Soldado, it is hugely important to create something real and disturbing than slick and polished, because gun fights and military missions in real life are never as clean as the movies make them seem. In the case of this Taylor Sheridan film, it seemed to get that all right.