Triple Frontier

Santiago Garcia ( Oscar Isaac) is a merc working in Colombia. One of his informants wants out of the life and in exchange for Santiago smuggling her out of danger she gives up information of the whereabouts of a big drug dealer and his stash of cash. Santiago sees a way out of his dangerous job too and decides to rob the dealer. To do this he has to build a team and the right men for the job are his old Delta Force buddies, Redfly (Ben Affleck), Ironhead (Charlie Hunnam), Catfish (Pedro Pascal) and Ben (Garret Hedlund). Post service life hasn't been good to any of them and soon enough the 5 are trekking through the Colombian jungle towards their future. But as the old saying goes "If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans."

This was good stuff. The trailer for this Netflix production made it look like a throwback to the 80's and 90's run and gun actioners that proliferated back then but it's quite different to what you'd expect. There's all the explosions and bloody headshots you'd imagine but the second half of the film in particular heads off on a quite unexpected tangent which feels quite welcome. It's here the film comes into it's own with it's depiction of the aspects of military missions that films never seen to show. The hardship, the boredom, the loneliness, the psychological effect years of violence can have on a person's head.

When news came out of J.C. Chandor directing an action thriller the first thing that came to mind was that he was quite a left field choice but he suits the material perfectly. Like his previous Oscar Isaac starring film 'A Most Violent Year' the first half of 'Triple Frontier' is sedately and deliberately paced. All the pieces are moved into place before everything kicks off. One of the joys of the heist film genre is seeing plans being made before they all come together. We get that here in spades, the team building, the planning, the plugging of holes and finally the execution. It's fun seeing decades of military wisdom coming together to ensure that the wisdom is never needed again.

It asks some pretty interesting questions too. Is greed good? How far would you go to make sure your family are looked after? Is murder ever justifiable? How much is human life worth? There's asides on mortality and morality, brotherhood, treatment of veterans. It's quite an intelligent film behind the gunfire. It's this that separates it from the men on a mission movies of an earlier era. It's a surprisingly beautiful looking one too. Chandor fills the screen with swooping shots of Colombian favelas, lush valleys, cocaine plantations and eventually the awe inspiring beauty of the Andes. For a continent stained red with the blood of a drug war it's a gorgeous looking place.

Dameron Poe and Shannon Hamilton, together at last.

The only area where it falls down is in the characterisation of our soldiers. Redfly (Affleck) is the only character to get any bit of backstory at all. He's a father struggling with civilian life. Nothing is going right for him and the only time he feels truly at peace is when he's readying to go to war. The rest are very thinly sketched even Isaac's Santiago. He fancies his informant but you never get a sense of him beyond that. Ironhead likes to count things, Ben is good with his fists and Catfish is reluctant and quiet. With such a good cast here you'd have thought a bit more would be made of our "heroes". Of them all Affleck does the best work. The weight of the world on his shoulders written across his face.

A solid thriller that's quite different from the film the trailers are selling you. Available to watch on Neflix right now.