Triple Frontier

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  • Triple Frontier

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fo3yRLLrXQA

    Count me in.

  • #2
    Re: Triple Frontier

    Originally posted by figment View Post
    Okay -- so call me a big spoiler-pants, because that's what I am.

    So, on the one hand, big leader says, and it's correct -- if we do this (that is, rob the cartel up umpty-million dollars) we can never go back to our normal lives.

    Check.

    And then you've got a bunch of moments of these guys worrying about how they couldn't send their kids to college and how their normal lives would'a, could'a, should'a --

    -- as if to suggest that once they get this money, all of their dreams of sending little Shirley to Medical School and having that home in whereverland could now come true.

    But hey -- remember what big boss said?

    It can't! These are former DEA guys or something like that -- they can't just go off, steal millions and suddenly just show up at home with black money, all suddenly rich.

    That's the problem. If you're a professional criminal, you've got all sorts of ways to use your dirty money -- you can buy all your stuff in cash and pay people to look the other way and pay your crooked lawyers to pay crooked cops and crooked judges and that's how you stay out jail and keep rich.

    But if you're just some guy who suddenly has twenty million in dirty money, what do you do with it? Because if you want to go back to your normal life you need to get that money back into the real world (anybody remember Breaking Bad and the trouble they had)?

    Given the jobs that they had, they can't all suddenly have won a fortune at some casino. And if they all just drop off the map then what happens to little Shirley and her dreams of medical school? What happens to the normal lives they've been dreaming of?

    Where do they go? What do they do, if they have to throw all of their past lives away and essentially become other people, become fugitives forever with no more connection to their past lives -- because as soon as they stick their heads up both the good guys and the bad guys cut them off?

    I understand, all this is is a trailer, so maybe all of these questions would be answered if I saw the movie, but the point of a trailer is to make me ask questions that draw me into the movie, not questions that make me think -- boy, this whole thing sounds really dumb.

    Which it did.

    And on the subject of dumb, I finally got around to watching some significant percentage of A Quiet Place, which, swimming against the tide of popular opinion, I also though was unbelievable dumb -- by which I mean that the character themselves were spectacularly dumb, but likewise the premise itself was monumentally dumb -- and I gave up on it when poor Emily Blunt and her baby in a box found themselves in a basement filling up with water.

    I just said -- Get the **** out of here, you dumb, dumb movie. I am through with you.

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: Triple Frontier

      Originally posted by nmstevens View Post
      Okay -- so call me a big spoiler-pants, because that's what I am.
      You must be super fun to go to the movies with, nmstevens. Haha.

      So the bulk of your point is that these characters need to watch Breaking Bad for the FYI that drug money needs laundered? You don't think they can somehow come up with a plan for that?

      You're expecting characters to be rational, when, there wouldn't be any movies if they were. Just like in life they are blinded by greed and arrogance (Gordon Gecko/Bud); an evil commitment to corruption in the name of family (Michael Corleone); a good-will-always-win-because-I-want-it-to attitude (Emily Blunt in Sicario).

      Eh. I want the spectacle. I want the guns blazing. I want the panic and the outrage and the hunting down and the being hunted. I want the intensity and the pain and the possible victory that might be just out of reach. Maybe it'll suck, god knows I'm often wrong. But for right now, I'M IN!!

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: Triple Frontier

        Regarding nmstevens’ comments: And that was just the trailer!

        By now, moviegoers here and everywhere else ought to be familiar with ”willing suspension of disbelief.” “The term was coined in 1817 by the poet and aesthetic philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who suggested that if a writer could infuse a "human interest and a semblance of truth" into a fantastic tale, the reader would suspend judgment concerning the implausibility of the narrative.”

        In Triple Frontier, it appears that the money is not serialized cash accounted for and stolen from banks; it’s only cash removed from circulation so it’s legitimate currency. The “good guys turned bad” can set up their own offshore accounts and never have to worry about doing without that ‘new car smell’ for the rest of their lives.

        As regards whether the logic of a screen story matters to its success as a screen story, I give you Swordfish and Léon: The Professional. Heat is another one. The neatest, cleanest heist of all that I’ve ever seen in a movie occurred in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, a heist that was effected by the titular character, and we, the audience, really didn’t even see it happen. All of the aforementioned cinematic wonders are well-crafted movies, logic be damned, and as movies go, there are many like them and many did like them.

        In the case of Triple Frontier, it was actor-bait that was tasty enough to land a big fish like Ben Affleck. It looks like a fun movie to watch, and see it I will, but unlike Swordfish, Léon: The Professional, Heat, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Triple Frontier also seems to me to be like one of those “once is enough” movies.
        Last edited by Clint Hill; 12-16-2018, 09:06 AM.
        “Nothing is what rocks dream about” ― Aristotle

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: Triple Frontier

          Originally posted by TigerFang View Post
          Regarding nmstevens' comments: And that was just the trailer!

          By now, moviegoers here and everywhere else ought to be familiar with -willing suspension of disbelief.- "The term was coined in 1817 by the poet and aesthetic philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who suggested that if a writer could infuse a "human interest and a semblance of truth" into a fantastic tale, the reader would suspend judgment concerning the implausibility of the narrative.-

          In Triple Frontier, it appears that the money is not serialized cash accounted for and stolen from banks; it's only cash removed from circulation so it's legitimate currency. The "good guys turned bad- can set up their own offshore accounts and never have to worry about doing without that 'new car smell' for the rest of their lives.

          As regards whether the logic of a screen story matters to its success as a screen story, I give you Swordfish and Léon: The Professional. Heat is another one. The neatest, cleanest heist of all that I've ever seen in a movie occurred in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, a heist that was effected by the titular character, and we, the audience, really didn't even see it happen. All of the aforementioned cinematic wonders are well-crafted movies, logic be damned, and as movies go, there are many like them and many did like them.

          In the case of Triple Frontier, it was actor-bait that was tasty enough to land a big fish like Ben Affleck. It looks like a fun movie to watch, and see it I will, but unlike Swordfish, Léon: The Professional, Heat, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Triple Frontier also seems to me to be like one of those "once is enough- movies.

          Look, I've been a fan of science fiction and fantasy since forever, so I'm well aware of the principle of suspension of disbelief.

          I am fully aware of the fact that, almost certainly, nothing in this universe can go faster than the speed of light -- "warp drive" et al, be damned. Likewise, the chances of a universe full to the brim with essentially humanoid lifeforms is -- horseshit. Nevertheless, I'm willing to accept any number of science fiction films that ask me to accept those things as necessary devices for the telling of stories -- in much the same way as tons of science fiction stories back in the fifties asked us to believe that the planets in the solar system were habitable and inhabited by human-like aliens -- martians, venusians, neptunians, et al -- long after science and science fiction writers knew that it was impossible. They needed it to tell stories and they used it until they traded it for another set of scientific impossiblities that were a bit more palatable.

          And there are all sorts of basic dramatic conventions that virtually everyone accepts and particular conventions that we, if we know what we're doing, get audiences to accept by working things in the right way.

          And the way you do it is by getting people not to ask the wrong questions. Because if they're asking the wrong question -- it's your fault.

          Of course the best way to avoid this is for there not to be any questions, for the story to be bullet proof -- everyone makes the right decision (by which I mean everyone is as smart as they should be and everyone acts according to their own characters -- they don't just behave stupidly in order to move the story forward), people who are supposed to smarter than the audience actually are, the world is the way it ought to be, no "warp drive" all the way down.

          I'm always a bit confused when I got kick back against this idea because underlying it is the notion that somehow is one of two ideas. First, that a movie could only have been made, a story could only have been told, by depending on some fundamental flaw - that a movie had to be dumb in order to exist.

          And yes, I suppose there are such movies. Double Jeopardy is a movie like that. It's basic premise -- a woman is send to jail for murdering her husband. Comes out -- turns out he's alive. But, since she already went to jail for killing him, it's okay for her to murder him now, because she's already been sentenced for killing him. **** no. That's absolutely untrue. No way in the world is that so. The entire idea of the movie is one hundred percent wrong.

          So in some few cases, yes. But the other idea is that a movie that is told in a dumb way would somehow not be better if it were told in a smart way.

          That is, if the characters who made dumb decisions made smart decisions, but got into trouble anyway. That movies whose forward momentum only happens because arbitrary things keep happening or because the characters keep doing ridiculous things completely out of keeping with who they are supposed to be and what they are supposed to know -- maybe if they were as smart and as knowledgeable as they were supposed to be -- but ended up facing obstacles that were even greater and more challenging -- maybe you would end up with a much better movie.

          Just a random thought of mine.

          NMS

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          • #6
            Re: Triple Frontier

            nm, I think what everyone here is saying and/or thinking is that yes we all know in most films that characters make bad/dumb decisions and we, being on the outside of the story observing, can see them all and go, "Hey, if so and so had just thought things through, they wouldn't have had to go through all that mess, pain, stress, etc.". But then we wouldn't have movies if everything went right or according to plan or like it does "in real life". And how boring would our existence be if we didn't have films and tv shows.

            Case in point, Lord of the Rings. If the eagles had just flown Frodo and the ring over the fires of Mordor so he could just drop it in at the beginning the characters all wouldn't have had to go through all that trauma and strife, Boromir would still be alive and Frodo wouldn't have gotten injured and messed up emotionally to the point where he had to leave Middle Earth, but we wouldn't have had a trilogy of pretty cool movies that were (at the time) nothing like we had seen before. Plus the characters wouldn't have gone through their "journeys" either.

            So, try not to overthink things and just enjoy the show.

            Comment


            • #7
              Re: Triple Frontier

              Originally posted by nmstevens View Post
              And there are all sorts of basic dramatic conventions that virtually everyone accepts and particular conventions that we, if we know what we're doing, get audiences to accept by working things in the right way.

              And the way you do it is by getting people not to ask the wrong questions. Because if they're asking the wrong question -- it's your fault.

              Of course the best way to avoid this is for there not to be any questions, for the story to be bullet proof -- everyone makes the right decision (by which I mean everyone is as smart as they should be and everyone acts according to their own characters -- they don't just behave stupidly in order to move the story forward), people who are supposed to be smarter than the audience actually are, the world is the way it ought to be, no "warp drive" all the way down.
              Well said (regarding the above quote). And I agree with you 100% about Double Jeopardy and A Quiet Place; I only needed the trailers to tell me not to pay to see them. On the other hand, I loved Back to the Future, and I was not alone.

              Also, interestingly enough, the ‘fabric’ of empty space itself is hypothesized to move faster than the speed of light as it contains all manner of light as we know it, but — insofar as we know to any degree of certainty — the fabric of space is comprised of nothing so it is indeed quite true when one states that “nothing is faster than the speed of light.”
              Last edited by Clint Hill; 03-20-2019, 02:26 PM.
              “Nothing is what rocks dream about” ― Aristotle

              Comment


              • #8
                Re: Triple Frontier

                Triple Frontier is out on Netflix. To see if it lives up to the months of hype, I'm watching it today.
                “Nothing is what rocks dream about” ― Aristotle

                Comment


                • #9
                  Re: Triple Frontier

                  Originally posted by figment View Post
                  it's lit, i'm in.
                  "Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy b/c you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say." -- Edward Snowden

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Re: Triple Frontier

                    Triple Frontier is a mere two hours and five minutes in its run-time, but after watching it, it seems as though it took longer from start to finish. Perhaps that’s because there’s a lot of good action sequences that’ll have you cheering on the squad at every turn. An entertaining movie, although somewhat predictable until the midpoint, it borrows from and has an excellent mix of stereotypical plot points for this type of movie fare from start to finish. The third act ending builds into it the possibility of a sequel, though, which could prove interesting.

                    No spoiler below that you cannot gather from the trailer:

                    These guys go deep in-country for their mission with only what they can carry. They’re former special operations operators, so they get into a lot of shooting matches. Ammunition is heavy to move, and these guys shoot a lot, so logically they would have to haul a lot of ammunition. But for all the shooting that occurs in the movie with no provision for restocking their ammunition, they never run out of “ammo.”

                    This moviemaking mistake is common to a lot of movies that use modern weapons in their plots, but one that I find to be always noticeable. Working out the story to have a logical way to replenish ammunition somewhere along the way would interrupt the story beats too much, I suppose. I’m not sure whether many — if any — movies consider this relevant technical detail. Westerns often do consider ammunition requirements, sometimes because ammunition in the Old West was costly and hard to come by, but more often because running out of ammo is often a plot point.

                    Oh, well. No one is counting bullets during an action movie like this one. Make a big bowl of popcorn and have fun watching it!
                    Last edited by Clint Hill; 03-20-2019, 02:45 PM.
                    “Nothing is what rocks dream about” ― Aristotle

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Re: Triple Frontier

                      watched it last night and found it quite entertaining. the cinematic quality was good and the setting beautiful and dangerous.

                      spoilers below: highlight to view

                      the refusal of the call was well done, imo. Affleck not wanting to join the mission but the one who probably needs the money the most.

                      the entire narrative was a nice combination of action and quieter moments with the characters which allows for a nice build up in the tension over time.

                      it seems there is a line before the hit the house that's said in voice over that kind of blows what the men come to determine a while later. i can't remember which character says it, but they say: the house is the safe.

                      so by the time they make it to the room where the money is supposed to be, they stand around pondering it and i'm like, it's in the walls. then they figure it out, which was odd because they already had figured it out, i thought.

                      but now i'm wondering if i saw that in the trailer and that's why i knew?

                      the Redfly character goes through a well done "refusal of the call" which i appreciate. he is the character that needs the money the most as he has a family to support. what didn't really seem to fit as well was the change in his character when they get to the house and find the money. he suddenly goes against everything he's previously done with all his training by missing the "hard out," time.

                      or the shooting in the village. i thought they could have easily set this up better with a couple of more lines as he debates whether he will only perform the planning of the mission or go all in.

                      other than that, the characters seem well crafted and true to their attitudes and values.

                      i love that their greed is what ultimately causes them to fail getting over the Andes. and that it is drawn out and they are so close to success, then BAM! it's not.

                      i thought the decline and crash was well done, however it seemed that they made it back to the lower lush mountainside a bit too quickly as it felt that they were deep into the Andes by the time the helicopter blew a gasket (or whatever the dojobbie was).

                      the village scene was well done with sufficient tension and suspense and #10 coming back later was a good set up that was well paid off. that moment, btw was a shocker. not that Redfly got shot but rather that it was a headshot. no coming back from that. i found myself thinking, that was a ballsy move. rewarding, you know.

                      so a few smaller quibbles...

                      when the donkey falls of the ledge-- the entire ledge gives way, i mean the entire thing and there was no path for the other four donkeys could have passed, but surprisingly they did. i felt bad for the donkey. he was along for the ride against his will.

                      the other thing that didn't make sense was the situation with the ammunition. at first it goes unnoticed, because after we see the container full of weaponry we assume that they've taken what they needed with them into the jungle, but they do not stop back by the container to refill their spent ammunition.

                      this becomes more questionable after the village scene because they are using a lot of ammunition, or so it seems. i don't know the capabilities of the magazines, but i didn't see anyone reloading. maybe if you count off every round, they literally could have had enough, but it didn't seem likely.

                      at the end when they give up their portions to Redfly's trust for his family seemed like the one with the newborn might have kept some and Santiago's sacrifice didn't seem as genuine because we knew his girl walked away with a cool 3 mil. of course he's going to Australia.

                      i'm glad they didn't leave Redfly behind. what was good is that the entire narrative is told through the team's POV (only) and it works really well. we never really know who the teen soldiers work for, and the coordinates that Ironhead hands to Santiago was well set up from his character's traits, and that in tandem with the line from his girlfriend where she says, that wasn't only Loredo's money.


                      so, overall an entertaining film. i enjoyed it.
                      "Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy b/c you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say." -- Edward Snowden

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                      • #12
                        Re: Triple Frontier

                        Saw it and enjoyed it for the most part. The events that played out seemed like something that would happen for real and not just with movie logic.

                        I felt like for such an "elite group of bad a$$es" as they kept selling themselves...they sure didn't seem like it when the heist actually went down.

                        ***SPOILERS***

                        They break in the drug boss's home in stealth mode, but the first shot from their gun comes from a LOUD a$$ assault rifle, killing a random goon they could have killed with some type of suppression. This leads to the drug boss being alarmed, hiding and ultimately popping out of the closet and shooting one of the team members later upstairs.

                        Some of their other military tactics and strategies seemed like it could have been more thought out...but it was okay I guess.
                        One must be fearless and tenacious when pursuing their dreams. If you don't, regret will be your reward.

                        The Fiction Story Room

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