Listen Here
By: Dylan Frazier
Email: frazierd@findlay.edu
Netflix’s latest original film, Triple Frontier, came out last Wednesday and it proves once again that Netflix can make a decent movie. With a loaded cast, headlined by Ben Affleck and Oscar Isaac, and fun action plus not having to leave your house to go out and see it, this movie makes for an enjoyable two hours. While it does stumble out of the gates, it is great action flick nonetheless.
Our story begins with Santiago (Oscar Isaac) who is ex-special forces, working to take down a cocaine cartel in Brazil. Shortly after, he constructs a plan to take down the kingpin, Mr. Lorea, and rob him of his money. He soon goes back to the US to get a team around and his plan is put into play but not without obstacles.
For the first 40 minutes the movie was a rather slow movie with a lot of exposition. A ton of character development for too many characters that didn’t matter all that much hindered the beginning of the movie for me.
Oscar Isaac’s character was also an issue for me. For being the one who actually wants to do the heist, he did a pretty bad job of setting everything up for success. There were a lot of missteps by his character and I know it was to further the plot, but he screwed up so many times. That isn’t a knock against Isaac, he was fine, I just thought his character was annoying.
I am not the biggest fan of Ben Affleck movies, but he was my favorite part of the movie. I liked his character the most and I felt that his motivations, although played out, were believable. He was also an ex-special force operative but had a family and was forced to retire. His character ends up, one way or another, in about every heist movie that has been made the last 10 years. Besides the typical storyline of this character, I liked him and thought his scenes were pretty good.
The best part for me was the mindless action in the movie. Sometimes it’s nice just to watch a movie and not have to think hard about it. It is just another run-of-the-mill heist movie but the action scenes were awesome. It made up for the first 40 minutes being kind of a drag. The raid in the house was very intense and it had me on the edge of my seat for the duration.
Again, this movie has its flaws and some might find themselves checking how much longer the runtime is. It isn’t my favorite movie I have seen but it definitely isn’t the worst, especially on Netflix. If you do find yourself wanting to watch a heist movie but maybe one that has a better story, I’d recommend Sicario.Nothing against this movie, I just didn’t love the story that much. But if you’re scrolling through Netflix looking for something to watch, then Triple Frontier may be for you.
