Triple Frontier (2019): Review

Its not very often that Netflix is that confident enough in one of their original movies that they actually give it a bit of a marketing campaign. I was surprised to see that it got a few ads on TV, and it wasn't one of those films that just gets dropped on Netflix with hardly anything said about it and then in a week its never spoken about again. Good to see that, because I do think Triple Frontier is one of the stronger Netflix original films yet.

The film is directed by J.C. Chandor, who has directed some acclaimed films already, but surprisingly none I'd ever seen. A Most Violent Year (which also starred Oscar Isaac) is the most recent, but for one reason or another I didn't get to it yet.

Triple Frontier brings together an excellent cast as a group of former Special Forces operatives who come together to rob a drug dealer in South America. Each of the 5 men are unsatisfied by their lives since their retirement and don't appear to have much to show for themselves after years of service for their country. This is the first time that they have to attempted to pull of a mission that will give them a personal gain, which they feel they are worthy of.

I think I should start with saying that the whole ensemble in this crew are giving great performances. Ben Affleck and Oscar Isaac do stand out a bit more because they are the leaders of the group. Affleck seems to be the most complex character of the group, but its actually Oscar Isaac that seems to get the most screen time when all is said and done. I'm not a big fan of Charlie Hunnam, but I was able to tolerate him and Pedro Pascal and Garret Hedlund are a bit more limited, but are capable too. The dynamic among the group was strong, it really felt like they were all old friends. I did care about the characters and wanted them to succeed, even if they were committing some less than reputable acts. I do think since most of the characters are men and there just seems to be a lot of testosterone on display in the characters that this is the type of movie that will be a bigger hit with men than it will be with women.

As you can probably expect, the heist doesn't really go as planned and some complications occur. I felt like there was enough unpredictability in the story that it could differentiate itself from other heist films. In the second half of the film it really transforms into an adventure movie. I never really felt like I knew where the story was going, and there is an especially large surprise in the tail end of the movie.

There are some scenes that are pretty tense when they need to be. The characters are tested with some moral dilemmas and it shows how greed can seduce any good man. When all is said and done I think Triple Frontier was a big win for Netflix, and I think word of mouth will serve it well. Its probably not the type of movie that would've done well in theaters anyway.

Triple Frontier gets 79 out of 100