film review

Triple Frontier, An Action-Packed, Thriller About SOF Guys on the Edge

Art imitating life? The latest action film to come out on Netflix is a must-see, big-budget production directed by J.C. Chandor, who also co-wrote the script. It has a big name, an outstanding cast including Ben Affleck, Oscar Issac, Charlie Hunnam, Gareth Hedlund, Pedro Pascal, and Reynaldo Gallegos, and an intriguing story.

The story is about a bunch of disgruntled ex-Special Operations soldiers who decide to risk it all, using their hard-won talents to benefit themselves. They take down a drug lord’s home deep in the jungle of the lawless Triple Border region where Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina come together.

But getting the money and getting away with it are two entirely different things. When their survival is on the line, they’re tempted to turn on each other…hmm. That rings a bit close to the true events that we’ve seen in other news.

The action scenes in the film and this IS an action film are very well shot as well as very intense. That should please the fans of the action genre as well as the exquisite scenery. Parts of the film were done in Colombia and other parts in Hawaii.

These ex-Special Operations troops, experiencing a post-military life that isn’t treating them particularly well, something that has been a frequent issue with our Global War on Terror (GWOT) veterans. Affleck (Redfly), plays a bored unsuccessful real estate broker, selling seedy condos in Florida. He’s split from his wife and doesn’t have the greatest relationship with his daughter. He even drinks and drives while taking his daughter to school.

Hunnam (Ironhead) gives lectures to SOF troops nearing their ETS date, encouraging them to stay in the military with the enthusiasm of someone going to the dentist. Hedlund plays Hunnam’s brother who now competes in MMA fighting. The two are instantly believable as a brother tandem and their scenes together are superb.

Pascal plays “Catfish” a former pilot who lost his license for running coke. They’re all struggling in their own way after life in the military although they’re still all close. Enter Isaac, who plays Pope, the only member of the group who is still in the game. Isaac as most of our readers know, played the hotshot pilot “Poe” in the Star Wars, Last Jedi film.

The film starts with Pope in a helicopter, while listening to Metallica ( I can relate), on his way to raid a drug dealer’s lair in the middle of a town. Pope is an advisor to a host nation counter-narcotics police unit.

All hell breaks loose and the action takes off as they take it down, but hardly cleanly. Pope then appears back in the states and tries to recruit his friends to join him in taking down the main drug dealer’s lair where he has millions of dollars stashed because he ostensibly doesn’t trust banks or believe in laundering his money offshore…okay.

Pope is aided by his informant Yovanna, played by Adria Arjona. Her part is basically to be shown running around while looking insanely hot in every scene. But her character development, as well as the others, is lacking. We really don’t know her motivation to stick her neck out for Pope, although it is hinted that the two are romantically involved.

It is surprising, and perhaps shouldn’t be, easy for Pope to talk his former mates into betraying their ethos as Special Operators and conducting themselves outside the law this time. Granted there is a large amount of money involved, and we are to believe that the country hasn’t given our veterans here a fair shake, but the gray area where their former patriotism is cast aside seemed a bit too easy. But again… maybe it isn’t so believable these days.

Of course, all hell breaks loose once they decide to go thru with the operation and they begin the raid. Chandor tries to show the thorough planning and meticulous attention to detail that Special Operations are known for, resisting the typical Hollywood image of just knuckle-dragging brutes with automatic weapons.

The action scene at the drug lord’s house is actually fairly early in the film and was the highlight of the film, the action tense and expertly filmed. While the character development was lacking in this, it is at its heart an action film. The actors are all excellent in their own right and they make this film a fun ride to watch.

We’re going to give the filmmaker a pass on how easily they portray these Special Ops vets transitioning from patriotic pipe hitters to criminals, and just sit back and watch for the finale. This is kind of a Kelly’s Heroes morphs into the GWOT generation. It isn’t perfect, but it is nonetheless an enjoyable way to spend a night at home. Now crank up the Metallica again…

The trailer can be seen here:

Photo: Netflix

New Miniseries “When Heroes Fly” Looks to Be a Smash

The Israelis are producing some excellent quality miniseries for television. “Fauda’ which centers around an Israeli Special Operations unit that goes undercover inside Gaza looks a lot like what we’ve read recently where a real operation went bad and the team got into a shootout with Palestinian members of Hamas. “Mossad 101” was another good one, where candidates for the Israeli spy agency are put thru the ringer by their demanding instructor who is running live ops while training his class of candidates. And they don’t know which is real or training.

The latest is a new series which will debut on January 10th on Netflix called “When Heroes Fly.” It centers around another Israeli Special Operations unit that was fighting in Lebanon in 2006. They get into a fierce firefight with Hezbollah fighters that greatly outnumber them while trying to rescue some crewmen from a disabled Israeli tank. During the fighting, their commander is killed. The team has a falling out over it and bitter recriminations go back and forth over their decisions on that fateful night which takes place when the team is trying to exfil back to Israeli territory and go home the next day.

The men go their separate ways for 11 years until the sister of one of the teammates, who happened to be the lover of the officer who took charge when the commander went down is seen in Colombia. Except that she supposedly died in a car crash there nine years before. And they find out that she’s being held against her will. So the commandos reunite for a final, personal rescue mission.

Their final mission together takes them deep into the heart of the Colombian jungle, where they soon realize that if they are to succeed in their search to find Yaeli, each of them must first confront the trauma of their battle in Lebanon that tore them apart so many years before.

It is about men from a Special Operations unit who all get a second chance to find the peace that has eluded them since their days together. But to do so will require perhaps even more loss.

SpecialOperations.com was contacted by the film company and we were lucky enough to get a sneak preview of the first three episodes. We hope to eventually sit down with some of the cast members before the January 10th premiere for a follow-up piece.

But the story is guaranteed to grab you and pull you in and keep you hooked until the final episode. It has been enormously popular in Israel and the cast and crew have already been signed on for a second season of 10 episodes.

The series was created by writer and director Omri Givron, co-creator of the Israeli show “Hostages,” and based on a book by late Israeli author Amir Gutfreund.

When Heroes Fly is produced by Spiro Films for Keshet Broadcasting. Having won the Best Series award at the inaugural Canneseries festival in April, the series debuted on Keshet 12 in May to rave reviews, increasing slot average by 35% in ratings and 21% in share, and making it the channel’s most-watched drama on Israeli television.

The headliner is Tomer Kappon who played a role in Netflix’s “Fauda”. He plays Aviv Danino, the second-in-command of the Special Ops unit and who suffers from horrible PTSD, after 11-years later from their experiences in Lebanon.

Israeli pop singer and actress Ninette Tayeb plays Yael ‘Yaeli’ Ashkenazi, the love interest of Aviv who everyone believed killed in Colombia in a car accident nearly a decade ago. She’s considered one of the most famous new faces in the Israeli entertainment industry.

Nadav Netz is her brother, Dov ‘Dubi’ Ashkenazi, Michael Aloni is the very successful business Dotan ‘Himmler’ Friedman. Himmler blames Aviv for their commander’s death and the two have become bitter towards one another. And Moshe Ashkenazi is Yakir ‘Benda’ Ben-David, the one member of the team everyone loves regardless of where they stand elsewhere.

The Hebrew-language film with English subtitles is guaranteed to appeal to the fans of the action genre as well as those who prefer the thriller type cliffhangers. Having watched the first three episodes, we can’t wait for the rest of the series to make its debut in January. The trailer for the series can be seen below:

Dunkirk an Intense, Masterful, MUST-SEE War Film

Christopher Nolan’s “Dunkirk” is a masterpiece of a war film that is a must see for any fans of the genre. The battle and evacuation of Dunkirk have been very rarely touched by filmmakers and for that reason, this film is a fresh look at a part of World War II that is largely forgotten.

To give an accurate breakdown, during the timeframe of 26 May – 4 June 1940, it was a full 18 months before America enters the war with the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The Nazi war machine is at its peak. After overrunning Poland, the Germans sliced thru Belgium and France, the British and French are a defeated army trying to get to England to prepare for the invasion that was thought to be coming.

Nolan doesn’t care if the audience knows that or not, there are no sweeping history lessons, no politicians or generals making speeches or moving big flags across a map. This film is about the ordinary soldiers and opens with a squad of infantry already on the run with the Germans on their heels just blocks from the beach.

The film and Nolan’s filmmaking feel like a documentary and he builds an incredible amount of tension. The soldiers, packed tightly in formations on the beach look up in dread at the sight of the Stuka dive bombers lining up for a bombing run. No one knows what is about to happen, there is nowhere to run and the men are sitting ducks in the open.

There is a distinct lack of blood and gore here, instead, the tension, the suspense, realism, and the filming, done in IMAX brings the viewer onto the beaches. You are not an observer, but part of the chaos and uncertainty flooding the beaches. The musical score does a fantastic job of lending, even more, tension to the action. Like a ticking time clock, it sets one on edge and keeps you there throughout the film.

The Germans are the unseen enemy without a face. Yes, the machine guns and rifles bark constantly and the planes zip overhead at regular intervals but the Germans are like an invading alien horde. Without a human face attached to it, they are the monsters licking at the British soldier’s heels.

Nolan breaks down the evacuation in three parts, one if by land (which lasts a week), two if by sea (which lasts a day) and three if by air (which lasts an hour). It is a juggling act where he breaks off one scene and jumps immediately into another and in another timeframe. While confusing at times, it lends itself superbly to the tense, dread that permeates the film from the opening shot to the final frame.

Kenneth Branagh, as Commander Bolton is the closest we’ll get to intense character development but the film doesn’t care about that. The character IS the 330,000+ men stranded on the beaches. However, Branagh’s character based on an actual person is the quintessential British hero. Understated, calm, with a deep compassion for the men he must get off the beach.

And while his eyes betray the difficulty that job entails, his “stiff-upper lip” English countenance never lets the slightest doubt to be visible to the sailors and men with this unenviable task. The only emotion we see from Bolton is when he spots the flotilla of tiny English fish and pleasure boats answering the call.

Because Nolan doesn’t overdo the dramatics of the boats arriving, they are just pinpricks on the horizon, bobbing up and down in the French surf. There aren’t the thousands of boats to a musical fanfare, just a few scattered, tiny boats with much more to come. But as Branagh says when asked what does he see in the distance, “home.” Absolutely brilliant.

Academy Award winner Mark Rylance puts in another fantastic performance as British civilian Mr. Dawson, who, with his son and a friend pilots his small boat from England. Like an old warhorse, Dawson is running right to the sounds of the guns rather than away. But with the understated brilliance he showed in “A Bridge of Spies”, he stays calm and tries to keep his young charges the same, even after they pick up a shell-shocked soldier who was torpedoed off another rescue ship.

Tom Hardy puts in a terrific performance while having no more than a dozen lines in the film. He is Farrier, a Spitfire pilot and we actually see his face very few times, like his character Bane from the Batman series. He wears an oxygen mask for most of the film, as he flies over the beaches and takes on German aircraft. But Hardy’s eyes are what tells the story as he scans the skies for the Luftwaffe and continuously checks his fuel which is running low.

CGI was kept at a minimum, Nolan supposedly had thousands of extras and cardboard cutouts on the beaches. The aerial sequences are superb as the pilots do their own death’s dance high above the ocean. With the filming done in the cramped quarters of the old planes, the realism is striking. Reportedly Nolan purchased a restored Nazi bomber for $5 million dollars just to crash it.

The sinking of the ships after being hit with bombs and torpedoes is the height of suspense. As the soldiers and sailors scramble out from under the ship as she turns over threatening to take the men down with her. It is claustrophobic, scary as hell as realistic as I care to ever get to a sinking ship.

Dunkirk isn’t a film about heroics or an over-the-top patriotism parade. It is a gritty, story about survival. Not everything that happens on the beaches are things the soldiers would care to remember. But they persevere and get over 330,000 men off the French coast and back to England. The British and French lost over 68,000 troops in casualties during the battle. And this film was made in a tribute to them.

See this film in an IMAX theater, you’ll be glad you did. This film will clean up at the Academy Awards when it comes to cinematography and musical score. There were only two points that I could find that didn’t pass the realism test and the strange part is one is in the opening scene and the other in the final one.

The first is admittedly a tiny one, British soldiers pluck leaflets out of the sky urging them to surrender. They’re in full color. Having read books on Dunkirk and seen the photos the original ones were in black and white. Granted, it is something only a military film buff would recognize. The second, however, was a bit of a whopper. As Hardy’s Spitfire runs out of fuel high above the beach, he begins coasting down to the shore. A German dive bomber is lining up the troops for a strafing run. And Hardy/Farrier takes them out in one pass as his plane plummets to earth with no fuel. That dog won’t hunt. But it doesn’t take away from an overall outstanding war film and will quickly become a must see and must add to any military war film collection.

However, it doesn’t take away from an overall outstanding war film and will quickly become a must see summer blockbuster and must add to any military war film collection.

Photo courtesy IMDB, YouTube