Triple Frontier, by Mark Boal and J.C. Chandor and directed by the latter - Seven out of 10

Triple Frontier, by Mark Boal and J.C. Chandor and directed by the latter

Seven out of 10

In the classic, older, wonderful version of The Italian Job, Charlie and his friends watch with horror as the bags of cash hang over the precipice, as their bus might fall into the void, while in the Triple Frontier, the audience watches with horror an upside down, apparently absurd version of that superb ending.

Triple Frontier has a lot of adventure, crime and action, not to mention the performance of formidable actors, scenery from the mountains, rivers, jungle of South America – if the film was not by chance shot in Mexico – to entertain the public, although there are some shortcomings that could have been avoided.

The five protagonists of the motion picture have been Special Forces men that would use their skills for a different purpose, once they are offered the chance by Santiago Pope Garcia aka Oscar Isaac and they pass reach the item on the list presented by Tom Redfly Davis aka Ben Affleck that states that the moment to walk out of this project is now, before storming a compound.

Gabriel Martin Lorea is a drug lord who lives with his family in a mansion that is well guarded and camouflaged to some extent in the middle of an area where few people live or travel and he is the target of the operation proposed by Santiago to the team that also includes William Ironhead Miller, Francisco Catfish Morales and Ben Miller, that would take a massive amount of money

Although reluctant at first, Redfly and the rest watch over the compound, study the movements of the family – one of the rules on the shortlist is more than commendable, for these are not just common criminals, the outlaws we normally see at work in ordinary heist films, and purports that they will act when the wife and children of the drug lord are not on the premises and if they return, they abort their operation, that is meant to eliminate only the head of the cartel.

In his activity as an official, on the right side of the law, Santiago Garcia arrests the brother of Yovanna, a beautiful, brave woman that agrees to help the team to have her brother liberated, taking the dangerous option of working inside the mansion, as a collaborator and providing information and eventually the gateway van that is needed for the exit.

When they analyze the plans, the potential problems, number of guards, the timing of the trip the family takes to church, which is the period when they would break in, Redfly has an input as the one who would coordinate the action and he makes clear the family would not be touched and that this is anyway a crime they are committing, with a murder and a robbery as two important counts.

As they get inside, it all seems to work according to plan, the details are as initially presented, they encounter no opposition, but they find no loot to take and they think that the leader has left with all the money, up to the point where Pope smells the paint that gives him the clue.

He breaks into a wall and it is filled with money – indeed, one rather annoying aspect of this film is the role that huge stacks of bills would play, being burned, thrown, abandoned to the chagrin of those who work so hard for very little, only to see millions of dollars used to make…fire – and so are all the other walls in the house which is an outré safe deposit in itself.

The wise, restrained, hesitant to participate in this illegal act Redfly is soon overwhelmed by the immense amount of cash and he is the gluttonous one, with the rest of the team insisting that they need to stop collecting more bills, when they already have hundreds of millions in the van.

Finally, the drug lord comes out of a hideout and he is killed, but a clash ensues wherein about ten or more guards are killed – which would later make the squeamishness, the morality questions raised later and decisions to kill no more seem rather paradoxical, if not absurd…we killed many for this, but now we stop because we have suddenly become ethical fighters…47 I could kill, but no more.

Maybe this sort of moral questioning, self-analysis tends to happen, but it looks less credible when it takes place at the end of such a long road, excruciating expedition and furthermore, all those involved have the same epiphany, allegedly feeling that the guards and many others killed in the recent or more distant part would be followed by no more victims – granted, some of those who were waiting to be eliminated would be teenagers, but it still seems like an preposterous proposition.

To avoid spoiler alerts, events and fights would be presented without the details, as in the case of the almost innocent peasants encountered along the way, who are killed because it seemed like they claimed a right to what has been dropped on their land and they might have been prepared to use their rather small guns to fight the men who had much more fire power and the skill to use it.

The incident where three or four villagers are shot dead might have added to the psychological pressure felt by the protagonists and their resulting decisions, which seem to originate more from some considerations related to the script – the need to have it more original, moralizing, educational or all these plus more – than to what tends to happen in “real life”, when team members fight and kill various adversaries, travel through impossible terrain, are exposed to incredible adversities and when it looks like they are close to the end of the ordeal, they might feel less thrilled and lose the zest and become somewhat uninterested in the upcoming achievement.

This might remind some of the lectures of Harvard Professor Tal Ben- Shahar – they used to be available on the internet, but a check might be needed – who spoke about the need to enjoy arriving on top of the mountain AND the climb, because most people would just focus on the top, the moment when they are there and then they can feel rather depressed because there is nothing further to do, in a way, like those entering a prestigious university might feel rather down, also on account of what another Harvard luminary, Daniel Gilbert, describes in his chef d’oeuvre Stumbling Upon Happiness, where we see that we are not made happy – or anyway, not as much as we thought – by what we anticipate would exult us.

The decisions made by the members of the team appear at times preposterous – at least for this viewer – and being cynical, it may make one wonder why on earth have I watched this film to this point, only to see these people present the old Latin: “parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus”

In the classic, older, wonderful version of The Italian Job, Charlie and his friends watch with horror as the bags of cash hang over the precipice, as their bus might fall into the void, while in the Triple Frontier, the audience watches with horror an upside down, apparently absurd version of that superb ending.