Triple Frontier [Netflix]

pixelburp

Dropped today so figured I'd add a new thread; the latest big ticket Netflix film, about a bunch of ex Special Forces conducting a heist on the Cartel

Directed by JC Chandor ("A Most Violent Year", and the excellent "All Is Lost")

Can't resist a good heist movie, so will check it out at some point...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fo3yRLLrXQA

Dades

Probably going to get around to this on Friday.

Saw the trailer a while back and turned off halfway through. I was sold already, and it looked like they were giving away the whole movie.

Great cast and not a cape in sight.

dreamers75

Watched it last night, good opening hour. The last part of the movie drags on a bit.

JP Liz V1

Dades wrote: »

Probably going to get around to this on Friday.

Saw the trailer a while back and turned off halfway through. I was sold already, and it looked like they were giving away the whole movie.

Great cast and not a cape in sight.

Yes a lot is shown in the trailer

Gamb!t

Enjoyable.
I see Kathryn Bigelow was involved also.

Mad_maxx

Stupidest movie I've seen in years and worst of all it could have been great, awful waste

ziedth

Missed opportunity to me. It wasn't bad and unsurprisingly the cast were all strong given the talent but my God the dialogue is awfully pokey.

Personally I saw the ending coming a mile away, it would have been much better to me if one had not taken the money and shown that they weren't the same person as before or when they were younger.

johnny_ultimate

I personally felt there was a bit more going on here than just a dumb 'spec op bros in the jungle' heist film. While I'm ambivalent about how successful it is in delivering the messages, there's a sort of cynical, critical nature to the storytelling that gave it an edge for me. It came across to me as a study of American arrogance and interventionism: how these people feel it's their right to drop into foreign territory and make off with the loot, regardless of the trail of destruction they left behind. What complicates that is how it critiques the fact that these men have clearly been cast aside as well - they've done their job for the military, and then left to fend for themselves. There's a sadness to Affleck's performance that captures that best, although I also appreciate how the film didn't really want us to root for the characters either. They're assholes, and hardly straightforward heroes you can root for. Then there's the sheer joylessness of the job - that image of the

crew burning money as they laugh semi-hysterically

is more haunting and grim than I was expecting when I went in.

Problem is I'm not sure any of that amounts to much - kind of ideas that are floating around but only occasionally brought to the fore. But they do elevate what otherwise would be merely a tense, functional and slickly directed heist film. It's that, just with something bubbling under the surface. A half success.

Autecher

I watched this today, it was ok. I knew as soon as they went to the jungle that

Ben Affleck's character would die because he was the only character who was in any way fleshed out, though still not by much

. I'll think of this as similar to Hold The Dark & Apostle, movies by very good directors who are given full creative control by Netflix and produce a movie inferior to everything they have done before.

AidoEirE

Mad_maxx wrote: »

Stupidest movie I've seen in years and worst of all it could have been great, awful waste

Was very strange i thought, jumped from place to place, no real insight to the characters, great cast but some were wasted.
Issac got loads of screen time with no real punch.
A pity really.
Imo, it was trying to copy lone survivor to much with the main guys.

santana75

Glad someone started a thread on this......saw it at the weekend, on recommendation of a mate, and I loved it. The level of testosterone is off the scale, they were only missing a line about lads getting soft pushing pencils at the CIA. But the acting and dialogue was pretty tight too. Oscar Issac is always good, Ben affleck plays a stormer too. But that guy from sons of anarchy, charlie whats his name, kinda stole the acting honours. All in all a really good film. Better than 99% of whats playing in theatres at the moment.

Dades

Quite enjoyed it over the weekend.

It was a Netflix action/drama with a great cast, but I wasn't expecting it to be Sicario. It's all about expectation management. I expected to be entertained for two hours and I was.

brevity

It felt like someone made a movie of levels they liked in a computer game.

I’m ok with that but, there was something a bit off about the whole movie.

ziedth

Seemingly it's been in development for years with various directors and cast attached. People dropped out due to change in direction etc. That could explain it .

Mad_maxx

AidoEirE wrote: »

Was very strange i thought, jumped from place to place, no real insight to the characters, great cast but some were wasted.
I kept forgetting pablo was in the movie.
Issac got loads of screen time with no real punch.
A pity really.
Imo, it was trying to copy lone survivor to much with the main guys.

The way they honoured afflecks character at the end was so dumb, he was an idiot who caused them to crash and then killed those village people

Mad_maxx

santana75 wrote: »

Glad someone started a thread on this......saw it at the weekend, on recommendation of a mate, and I loved it. The level of testosterone is off the scale, they were only missing a line about lads getting soft pushing pencils at the CIA. But the acting and dialogue was pretty tight too. Oscar Issac is always good, Ben affleck plays a stormer too. But that guy from sons of anarchy, charlie whats his name, kinda stole the acting honours. All in all a really good film. Better than 99% of whats playing in theatres at the moment.

Charlie hunnam is an awful actor, he does that Hugh laurie in house thing of over americanising it

B_ecke_r

Mad_maxx wrote: »

Charlie hunnam is an awful actor, he does that Hugh laurie in house thing of over americanising it

definitely not awful,

brilliant in this and obviously SOA

2Mad2BeMad

Decent film. Can't see myself ever wanting to rewatch it but it was worth a watch.
Like another poster said, it just felt abit off. Like they didn't know themselves what story they wanted to tell.
Ending was awful. Real movie cliche crap

Dades

Mad_maxx wrote: »

he was an idiot who caused them to crash and then killed those village people

Now *that* would have been a worthwhile twist.

Stone Deaf 4evr

Mad_maxx wrote: »

The way they honoured afflecks character at the end was so dumb, he was an idiot who caused them to crash and then killed those village people

I dunno, I thought it was pretty good, Its telling that I find myself still thinking about it a few days after watching it. but i'll concede that a bit more character development would have paid off. Spoliers below - not sure if we're censoring them or not.

Charlie hunnam - retired and giving speeches on how war stays with you - obviously suffering from ptsd, Garret hedlund reduced to mma fighting at low level, Affleck trying and failing as a real estate agent, pablo lost his pilots licence due to drugs, and Oscar Isacc consulting in a half hearted war on drugs in his home country. All highly trained and skilled individuals cast aside after serving their country, burning though what meager pension they have and searching for a sense of purpose.

Affleck was the best realized, torn between wanting to stay with his family, and reluctant to go, but also the most affected by greed when push came to shove, and was ultimately the undoing of the whole plan. Its hard to not feel some degree of sympathy for him, his portrayal of a man put in a bad situation, and committing to seeing it out, was very well done. I quite enjoyed the second half of the film also, as it wasn't the direction I was expecting. the desperation and isolation of the escape sequence was a nice contrast to the precision of their earlier recce of the mansion.

pixelburp

Very much a film you sense wanted to tell a more complex, harder edged story but for whatever reason came off half baked and uncommitted. Execution couldn't decide between sombre reality or hyperactive power fantasy, ending up as neither. There was definitely a story lurking about the fringes about soldiers forgotten and broken by their service, but it never carried through. The nuts & bolts of the "heist" element of the story wasn't particularly engaging either, running out of steam about halfway through, when inevitably the wheels start coming off their plan. Performances were decent though, Affleck coming off best with a world weary, cynical turn.

The White Wolf

I found the film tonally all over the place. They establish Affleck's character as being initially on a personal redemptive arc only to flip the tables on that utterly unconvincingly.....and then flip it again! It felt like the film was missing an hour to be honest. Maybe that's why it ended up on Netflix.

On a positive note for once I thought Hunnam was a highlight.

sonic85

I thought this was pretty bad. Not awful but not far off it. Started off good the characters were fleshed out reasonably well and until the mission the film was tipping along nicely. After the house when the mission went downhill though the film also took a similar direction and by the end it was just ridiculous.

It was watchable but due to the talent involved it should've been a lot more.