Rated Greg’s Top 5 Most Handsome Movies
- Triple Frontier
- Heat
- Ocean’s Eleven
- The Outsiders
- The Departed
How many actors do you think fired their agents because they didn’t get offered Triple Frontier? I’m guessing there was a lot of movement among the clientele of 35 to 45 year olds around Hollywood after Netflix released this back in March. Who do you think was most pissed off? John Krasinski? Channing Tatum? Chris Evans? It was probably Chris Evans. The script of Triple Frontier is a dream for anyone looking to flex some muscles and brood on ‘em, harkening back to the action glory days of the 1980’s.
Five broke, down on their luck former marines decide to rob a South American drug lord and make all of their problems go away. What ensues is one half heist movie, one half survival movie, and two halves tough guy train. All Aboard!
The reviews that panned this Netflix original all had the same vibe. They claimed that Triple Frontier was pretty clearly constructed as content, not as “art.” I don’t disagree. If you made a bot watch every Stallone, Arnold, and Swayze movie from 20th century, then locked that bot in a room and made it write a screenplay, it would come up with Triple Frontier. This film isn’t concerned about saying something original or eliciting an academic think-piece. It’s basically an action cliché algorithm.
Even the cast of Triple Frontier appears to have been compiled not based on who fit which role, but which actors had a very precise level of a cult following. Oscar Isaac, Garret Hedlund, Pedro Pascal, and Charlie Hunnam. I promise you out of 100 tweets about any of those actors, at least 99 will be positive. Within the movie, you could switch any of the roles among the four and it wouldn’t add or subtract from the story.
Obviously this list excludes Affleck. You can find a lot of negative things said about Benjamin Geza Affleck, 2002’s Sexiest Man Alive, on the internet. Trying to log onto your homepage and NOT seeing someone talking crap about Affleck is like NOT seeing inappropriate t-shirt slogans on the Ocean City boardwalk. Everyone wants a piece of him. But here’s the thing. Fuck those people. Ben Affleck is a treasure to the film industry and is often the best ingredient in any movie he’s in, whether the movie is good or not. If Ben Affleck and Matt Damon were hanging off of a cliff Good Son style and I could only save one, I’m saving Ben every time (It’s not your fault, Matt). True to form, he’s is the best part of Triple Frontier.
Unlike the other four characters, no one else could have played Affleck’s role as Tom ‘Redfly’ Davis. You see, the filming of Triple Frontier took place as Affleck was going through a divorce and on the brink of rehab in 2018 (you can tell because he looks like shit). Typically the most charismatic member of an ensemble, his performance of a downtrodden veteran is quite jarring. It’s impossible to watch without thinking about what demons must have been going on in his head, as both his marriage and Batman franchise crashed and burned. Whatever the case, he’s REALLY good in this and nails the part.
As for the movie on the whole, Triple Frontier is damn entertaining. Who the hell cares if it was seemingly created in a lab? So is every Marvel movie and this is exponentially more interesting than those. Plus, it’s an R Rated, stand alone action movie not affiliated with any other franchises. How often does that happen these days? Once a year maybe? Den of Thieves took that title last year. Atomic Blonde the year before. 2019 is all about Triple Frontier. Grade: A+
Rated Greg 