One of the early tragedies to the Netflix distribution line has to be the J.C. Chandor (A Most Violent Year, All Is Lost) Triple Frontier, a movie that which you can decide after watching and/or reading this review whether you like it or not. And this is not a review that is going to talk about the merits and faults of Netflix (by one sentence 2019 stand is Netflix is amazing with their shows, but I wish they would stay away from movies…done and done), but rather whether this movie should have been kept from being seen on the big screen…where it was meant to be seen…where it was designed to flourish. I’ve probably seen over 1500 movies in a movie theatre in my life at the time of this post. I’ve probably seen 1500 other movies for the first time on my television screen as well. For each movie that I’ve seen and loved on my television, I can’t help but wonder what the movie must have been like in the atmosphere in which it was designed to be view. I can’t make the same claim the other way around. Sure I’ve said, “Man, I wish I would have saved my cash and watched this at home…or not watched this at all” when I see a terrible movie in the theatre, but that is a different conversation and, hopefully, one I don’t have to have on a different day. Beasts of No Nation was the first of the original Netflix films that draw the public’s interest. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said then that for a movie to be considered for Oscar nominations, the film must have at least a limited theatrical run. I don’t know all of the details about how long a movie needs to be in the theatres, locations, etc., but Beasts of No Nation was a film that had to adhere to those standards as it was thought that it might get some Oscar recognition. This movie ultimately got shut out from nominations this year, but it set a precedent for sure. Netflix has continued to produce some AMAZING television shows as well as movies, its crowning achieving being 2018’s Roma, a movie that not only earned but won multiple Academy Awards, nearly winning Best Picture. It was not my favorite movie by any means, and for each person I met who liked it, I’ve met five who disliked it. I will say that it was a difficult watch at home. Roma was black and white with subtitles and much more difficult to see on my 42″ television than on a massive theatre. Roma was a not-so-great movie for me that suffered even more on the small screen. Triple Frontier was a better-than-average movie that suffered the same fate. I mean, come on. A big-budget heist movie with three of the top leading men out there, and you’re reducing it to a tiny rectangle into the corner of my family room apartment. Convenient. Sure? Worth it? Nope.
Chandor’s name is already being associated with big hits. For 2011’s Margin Call (88% on Rotten Tomatoes), the screenwriter capitalized on the success of that film with his first two directorial efforts in the Robert Redford solo movie All Is Lost and the incredibly underseen A Most Violent Year. The cast he assembled for this 2019 Triple Frontier alone suggests that this film belongs at your local multiplex on the day of its release. Chandor was able to secure Ben Affleck (Argo, Gone Girl), Oscar Isaac (Ex Machina, Inside Llewyn Davis), Charlie Hunnam (FX’s Sons of Anarchy, Papillon), Garrett Hedlund (Mudbound, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk), and Pedro Pascal (Netflix’s Narcos, HBO’s Game of Thrones). While Chandor might not have done the best job distinguishing each character from one another, I thought the team of ex-military men of five had excellent chemistry together on the screen.
The Triple Frontier is where Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina meet at a bend in the Parana River. So that’s where we get our title from.
While three of our characters get roughly the same amount of screentime, our lead is Isacc’s Santiago “Pope” Garcia. Pope is a private military contractor who is working for a private organization in Columbia. We meet him as he leads an extremely heavily equipped team in a detonating raid of a drug cartel kingpin’s secret location, masquerading itself as a disco. Yovanna (Adria Arjona – The Belko Experiment, Pacific Rim: Uprising) is his informant, a beautiful one at that…we learn later that most of Pope’s informants are beautiful, and he often has relationships with them that go beyond the scope of the job. While this particular job goes bust, Pope learns of a hidden fortress at the crime boss’s home, buried deep in a Columbian forest. He is informed that there is at least $75 million that the kingpin has hidden. Pope realizes quickly that he will not risk his life just to “do his job.” If he’s going to take down this notorious man and fleece him of his millions, the money is going to go into his pockets. But to do that, he needs to ditch his legitimate team and bring in his former team of trusted marksmen for one last score. The premise of the movie is not new. We’ve seen plenty of stories about “getting the band back together one last time.” But this movie is different than that…in a good way. Often, as is the case with Triple Frontier, we truly lose the character differentiation. Even with an amazing cast of just five men here, we don’t get to know them enough as individuals to honestly care about them or what happens to them. Ironically, I’m saying that in a Chandor movie (one of his specialties is his rich characters) that stars the incredible Isaac and Hunnam and the always great Affleck. However, we are more than compensated with high doses of action and incredible adventure for the lack of character development. And, unlike a movie where the well-functioning team is brought back in by an agency, everything here is illegal. There will be blood on their hands. And none of them will be able to return to their lives as they previously knew them. They would have a bullseye from the cartel they will be robbing for the rest of their lives. Essentially, we have a popcorn flick…a popcorn flick we’d much rather be watching in the movie theatre, but a popcorn flick nonetheless.
To be patriotic or not to be? Our five leads each served their country dutifully, yet each struggles to sustain the life they want to be lead. We know about Pope…retired, but still risking his life on missions more dangerous than when he was in the military. William “Ironhead” Miller (Hunnam) is still in the military, giving the same recruitment speech over and over to military personnel who have made it to the point where they can leave the service or continue fighting for their country as he did. His younger brother Ben (Hedlund) serves as a literal punching bag in mixed martial arts patches. Morales (Pascal) is a former military pilot who lost his license after running cocaine and is now bored out of his mind with retirement and is the one who needs the least amount of convincing to cut the monotony of his life. The wildcard is Tom (Affleck). He’s a divorced dad with a drinking problem whose daytime gig is unsuccessfully selling condos is wondering how he’s going to pay his piles upon piles of bills. He’s not good at it, but the honest life seems to suit him more than the others. Pope won’t do the mission unless everybody on the team is on board, so of course, everyone on the team is on board, or we wouldn’t have a movie. Duh. And though this is Pope’s idea, once the five have signed on, Tom becomes the project’s mastermind, just as he was when the five served together.
What plays out before us is some of the coolest and surprising adventures that we’ve seen on the silver screen in quite some time. From the moment the team infiltrates the home all the way to the very end, we are presented with harrowing scene after harrowing scene in which the team has to make judgment calls about what is more important? Their lives or money? Though we, unfortunately, do have a lot of “Group Think” here, there are some differing opinions and some arguments, and even a fistfight among our heroes. The main problem here is that the team likes each other far too much. These are five brothers to the core, and all are on the same agenda…or at least as close to being on the same agenda when hundreds of millions (yep, I said hundreds) are involved. And with mountains of money comes all kinds of unknown emotions, including the idea that no money can be enough, especially when they leave bags of money on the table (literally). Likable men to the very end…well, at least four of them. Unfortunately, one of the four has a little less patience and a little more willingness to pull the trigger than the others. I’ll leave it for you to decide if it gets the group in more hot water than they deserve or not.
The film is beautifully shot. The sound is great. The scenarios that the crew finds themselves up against both before, during, and after the heist are unique, even with stories like this being told dozens of times each year. So while we have these paper-thin characters that make it impossible for us to draw a connection with, we get an escape route that involves mountains, forests, rivers, and more. We have characters that are forced to make these instantaneous more decisions, and that would be great if we actually felt anything for these characters. If we understood these characters and their motives, we might understand how a certain judgment could be easy or difficult for them, and we might even be able to empathize with them. But we don’t know them. So these difficult decisions that they have to make regarding their survival are not something we really care about. We aren’t invested in these guys.
While Triple Frontier is enjoyable, it suffers from a mode of display (television) that is less than stellar. But worse, it falls victim to poorly developed characters that we don’t care about the mission they are on, and, worse, we fail to care if they succeed or fail in said mission.
Plot 7.5/10
Character Development 6/10
Character Chemistry 7/10
Acting 8.5/10
Screenplay 8.5/10
Directing 7.5/10
Cinematography 10/10
Sound 8/10
Hook and Reel 8.5/10
Universal Relevance 8/10
78.5%