What do you do when you reach a certain age and point in your military career? If you’re lucky, you are a desk-bound, high-ranking officer. If you’re not, you can end up with private contractors, or try to persuade young recruits not to stray from the high, albeit low paying, patriotic road. You can leave the army behind, sell houses to put your kids through college and drive a beat up truck. You can stay in the army until you’re shot to death or your knees finally give in.

Or you can get rid of a South American drug lord on your own, do the world a favor and get damn rich while at it.

The 2019 Netflix-produced action film Triple Frontier positively deviates from the typical production of the streaming giant. With recent successful titles such as Umbrella Academy and Bird Box or To all the Boys I’ve Loved Before, Netflix often plays it close to home with focusing on mystery genre or rom-coms heavily streamed by young adults. Triple Frontier is then a paradoxical addition to the ever-growing library. A breath of fresh air with its star-studded cast, heavy action and even heavier themes which has a good old-fashioned feel.

Little less action, little more more conversation, please

Concentrated around Ben Affleck, the biggest name the movie has, Triple Frontier can boast a cast of dreams, and one of the best ensembles of recent years. Oscar Isaac, Pedro Pascal, Charlie Hunnam and Garrett Hedlund are all Hollywood proven, but not mainstream leads just yet. Thanks to it, they can still own their characters and offer a somewhat raw and gritty presence. All of them bring their action A-game. But with Pascal and Isaac on board oozing charisma, the film, being surprisingly dialogue-heavy, holds its own even when gunfire stops.

Triple Frontier benefits from Affleck as not only a household name and a solid and reliable actor, but also as a sort of a narrative device. Affleck, with his movie image of a steady, good family guy, subverts the expectations of the audience twice as well. He skillfully leads his character from a trusted commander to a greedy, desperate man. You just know somebody is going to crack in the face of heaps of hidden money – you just don’t expect it to be him.

Yet with a cast as good as this one, it is really a missed opportunity not to dive deeper into the complicated relationships between the characters. It’s a shame as the movie has an interesting pool of them. It doesn’t play heroes or good and bad – it plays real men, doing a morally questionable thing with both good and bad intentions. It’s the biggest strength of the story, but, unfortunately, a strength the movie does not use to its full potential. The initial trust between the ex-military men is established well. However, the movie does not do an equally good job of showing the trust being slowly chipped away piece by piece as the plan goes, no surprises there, awfully wrong. It doesn’t add more layers than necessary to the characters except Affleck’s. The conflicts among them then feel unearned and do not do the story or the actors enough justice.

Long live comprehensible shoot-outs

Rather than focusing on the complex issues and intimate struggles between and within the characters, the film sold that out in favor of solid action. Despite the trailer indicating that the major part of the story will be about the raid in the drug lord’s house, it is actually quite short and leaves the viewers wanting more. In this case, it is not as much a criticism as it is a compliment as the shootout scene at the mansion was pretty damn enjoyable. It mostly steered clear of action scene sins – looking at you, shaky cam – and it was shot precisely, clearly and in an intelligent way.

After the fast-moving first hour which was over just a tad too quickly, there was a nice change of pace and setting. Even though the twists and complications were quite predictable, it did not stop the film from being exciting. The second half of Triple Frontier doesn’t keep you guessing by any means, but, most importantly, it keeps you satisfied.

And what more do you need, actually? Triple Frontier is far from groundbreaking, but it offers a good old-fashioned heist action movie with clear and smart action sequences. Despite a later decrease in pace it keeps the level of attention of viewers steady, and the acting leads are an absolute pleasure to watch. They are underused, however, as the film brings up challenging issues of morality only to touch up on them. It misses the opportunity to address them in sufficient detail and dive deeper into the character psychology, but it’s still among the best pieces Netflix subscription can get you.

TL;DR: Triple Frontier uses its great cast filled with non-mainstream action stars to bring together a smart heist action film which touches upon some heavier themes. Unfortunately, it prefers the well-executed action to deeper dive into the psychology of characters, which cost the film points in the long run.

7/10

Don’t have enough of Triple Frontier? Then read the piece about veterans and their portrayal in the movie.