JC Chandor is an interesting director. The guy takes a standard movie story and puts a fresh spin on it. He got Robert Redford to be silent in a survival story; he told a crime story about a criminal trying to go straight. And now, he’s telling the “US Army invading a South American drug cartel’s lair” story. The stuff you see in Triple Frontier is similar to other action movies, but the characters and the story are just different enough to keep the viewer interested even during the quieter moments.
Redfly (Ben Affleck) is a struggling retired vet, barely paying bills and divorced from his family. He’s ripe for the pitch Pope (Oscar Isaac) shows up to offer him. Pope has an informant (Adria Arjona) who told him of drug kingpin Lorea’s location in the jungles of Brazil. Pope believes he can get Redfly to help him invade the compound, with their old team including Catfish (Pedro Pascal), Ironhead (Charlie Hunnam), and Ben (Garrett Hedlund, somehow nicknameless). Each of them have more investment in the situation than normal too, because Pope got an agreement that the team can keep 25% of the money they find if they take out Lorea on the down low. Meaning: illegally.
The fun spin Chandor puts on Triple Frontier comes from Nic Cage’s The Rock. In that film, the bad guys were pissed off ex soldiers who held San Francisco ransom for money, completely removing the valor and love of country that motivated them, instead making them mercenaries. Triple Frontier spends 30 minutes making you understand the complicated motivations that bring all these men to the table, but NONE of them are for the honorable reason they got into the service. Chandor’s time at the beginning also pays off as it gives each team member varying levels of motivation in the job. Like any heist movie, something invariably is going to go wrong. However, instead of digging deep relying on a just cause, the motivation is purely selfish, putting each of these men at a moral quagmire as the situation gets more and more harrowing.
Don’t worry fans of shoot em up action movies. This movie’s got some great sequences. The raid on Lorea’s compound is tense with how how secluded and empty the house is, plus how tight the timeline is. Plus the messy motivations make each team member act more selfishly, trying to get more and more money. There’s explosions, a sniper fight, a car chase, and a cocaine farming field as well. There’s a helicopter flight over the Andes Mountains that gives you an idea of how vast that jungle is, so when the group is walking through the jungle, we know how far they have to walk. It’s beautiful and scary at the same time. There’s also a little bit of romance, the classic fireplace and drinking bonding sequences, and an emotional chew out. Chandor makes sure he checks the genre boxes while telling his story.
Triple Frontier is just different enough to be a more grown up version of those 80s Schwarzenegger/Stallone films. I would have liked Chandor to insert 1 or 2 one liners from that era just to humor us. Something subtle even. Like, Ben Affleck saying “I’m the Dark Knight.” Or Oscar Isaac saying “Han Solo ain’t got no shit on me.” Those are winking enough that you could throw them in early on and no one would blame you.