Pope (Oscar Isaac) gets the Special Forces gang back together again for one last job. The only difference is, this one isn’t government sanctioned. Which means this drug lord take down is really more of a robbery, with extremely high stakes in the middle of the South American jungle – but also potentially high rewards. With no government agency looking over their shoulders, there’s a lot of drug money up for grabs.
Redfly (Ben Affleck) has been out of the game for a while, and he’s reluctant to be 
pulled back in. But a lousy real estate market and a newly separated household are drains on his bank account, and the money is highly motivating. Ironhead (Charlie Hunnam) is in it for brotherhood. His little brother Ben (Garrett Hedlund) is in it for adventure. And Catfish (Pedro Pascal) is the much-needed copter pilot rounding out their crew.
For the first time in their lives, these heroes who’ve always operated in secrecy, for their country, are operating on their own, for financial benefit. So there’s obviously a moral or two at play when this operation goes south. I mean, there’s more money than anticipated. More money than they dreamed. More money than they can carry. More money than a helicopter can safely navigate, and these guys have a getaway route that has them flying over the Andes. You can basically play along and see how you’d react. Would greed trump safety? Does money win over planning and rational thinking? How many American dollars is one life worth? Or many lives? There’s lots of juicy moral conundrums, and these 5 guys don’t always agree, which makes for some intense conflict.
Charlie Hunnam and Oscar Isaac are magnetic. Ben Affleck seems a little lethargic. There’s lots of crazy car chases and gun fights to wake up the sleepy Batman though, and gorgeous if forbidding landscapes. Unfortunately, director J.C. Chandor doesn’t quite follow up on the most compelling bits. He dangles the ethics carrot and then throws it down a dark crevice. What is the meaning of it all? Oscar Isaac isn’t the only one exploiting war for profit – so is Hollywood, and this movie could have had a meta-quality to it, an incisive commentary, and you feel at times that we’re teetering on the precipice of it, but Chandor never dares take the plunge, and Triple Frontier remains a meaty but mediocre shoot-em-up movie.
ASSHOLES WATCHING MOVIES 
I agree! I loved the first half and felt so tense during the actual robbery, and then it slowly started dwindling towards the end. Still a solid and fun watch, though 🙂
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Money sucks! And they haven’t figured that out yet? We all risk our lives for money which usually leaves most with a worthless life. Ok, blowing things up is worth something.
Now where did Tubularsock leave his helicopter?
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‘Only when the last tree has died, and the last river poisoned, and the last fish caught, will they realise that they cannot eat money’ Cree proverb 😉 Still a shoot’em up movie always welcome on a Saturday night at Fraggle Towers. Cheers Jay.
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Sounds worth the watch. It came up while browsing last night – now on the agenda for tonight. Thanks.
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Spotted this one last night and thought “I see”. It does sound like good Friday night shenanigans, though… wee bit of food and some shoot ‘em up action. Sign me up.
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Hadn’t even heard of this movie. Thanks for the heads-up. My husband and I are going to watch it this weekend. Pretty strong cast.
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Mediocre seems to be the overall sentiment, which is such a shame, given the talent involved. The plot looked promising too. I’d still give it a watch, if only for that cast!
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How does it compare to the gang doing their thing in Fast Five. 😀
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This is kind of what I’d expect from this; a decent cast & some good action but still rather mediocre. I’ll still check it out though, I’m a sucker for these things when needing something a little less brain-cell-intensive to watch. Neat review =]
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I quite liked it, but there was potential for it to be much better. The second half, especially, lent itself to develop the characters some more, which they did, but they could have gone much further. Still, I did enjoy it in the end.
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I think I saw a trailer for this and went “meh”. Thorny issues, though.
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