Another Friday, another new Netflix movie. Not that I mind. Most are actually really well done, and Triple Frontier was no exception. It also didn’t hurt that it had five A-list stars in all shots of the film. Helmed by Kathryn Bigelow, who’s no stranger to war films (The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty), this movie was gritty, taking place mostly in the jungle of Columbia.
Santiago, played by Oscar Isaac, has been trying to hunt down drug lord, Lorea, with the help of a very attractive informant for the past three years in the jungles of Columbia. After finally tracking him down, Santiago looks to recruit his former Special Forces buddies to aid in taking the money and killing Lorea. William (Charlie Hunnam), who after 43 confirmed kills and then retiring from Special Forces, is now giving pep talks to other army recruits. He’s in, as long as Redfly (played by Ben Affleck) is in. Having no luck as a real estate agent, Tom is reluctant at first, but soon agrees. Santiago then convinces former pilot, Frankie, played by Pedro Pascal, to join the reconnaissance despite having a suspended license for cocaine use. Easily on board is William’s brother, Benny (Garrett Hedlund), who’s had minimal luck as a and MMA fighter.
Once everyone is on board, and the gang sees a gap in the guarding of the house safe in the jungle they all agree to stay and get the money. All things seemingly go smooth in the operation until they realize all of the walls in the house are holding money. Tom gets greedy and tells the group not to leave on time causing a lot more deaths and extreme house fire before escaping. Realizing they seized $250 million rather than the suspected $75 million, Santiago’s informant warns them that they stole more then Lorea’s money, so they better watch themselves.
Greed gets the best of these friends, so the helicopter that’s supposed to take them to sea and out of harms way is too heavy and crash lands into a cocaine field. Scared of being harmed, Tom and Frankie shoot and kill many of the farmers. They get out with their loot on a few mules, but an angry teen from the cocaine farm follows and ends up killing (SPOILER!) Tom! Realizing they’ve been found out, they know an Lorea’s gang and an army of Colombian teens are waiting for them at the beach to kill them, the group makes the difficult decision to dump the money into a deep ravine, never to be found.
They rather narrowly escape with a little over $5 million from the heist, all of which they put into a trust for Tom’s family. After sad and heartfelt goodbyes, William hugs Santiago and says “maybe someday we can do some good with it” while handing him the coordinates to the ravine.
No lie, I loved this film. It was very enthralling, and you got just enough back story on all the main characters before thrusting them into a crap load of shoot-outs and heart-pounding run-ins. I also like that it only focused on the five leads. No need for an onslaught of supporting characters whose names you never remember. The dialogue was easy to hear and action was used well throughout. Only once did I think, wow, they aren’t worried about food? Because food’s not important when you’ve got millions of dollars to feed you in the future. Well done, Kathyrn Bigelow, well done.