Former elite soldiers go on an ‘Expendables‘-like heist in J.C. Chandor’s indelibly exciting and pulse-pounding “Triple Frontier.” The film, written by Chandor and journalist-turned-screenwriter Mark Boal of “The Hurt Locker” and “Zero Dark Thirty” fame, begins rather familiarly, as Oscar Isaac’s Santiago reconnects with his former Special Ops buddies (played by Ben Affleck, Charlie Hunnam, Garrett Hedlund, and Pedro Pascal) hoping they will join him on a high-paying, very illegal legal heist in South America. The attempted crime eventually turns into a cautionary tale about greed, very much akin to past classics “Treasure of the Sierra Madre” and “Wages of Fear.”
Now available to stream on Netflix, “Triple Frontier” has Chandor continuing to show his talents for expertly choreographed, hold-your-breath action sequences, just as he did in his last two movies “All Is Lost” and “A Most Violent Year.” His camera, aided by cinematographer Roman Vasyanov (“End of Watch” “Fury”), shows the chops of a confident maestro, a filmmaker who is in total control of his mise-en-scene. It’s an epic and visceral adventure that feels like it is part of a bygone Hollywood era, one in which smartly-delivered action spectacles used to be the norm.
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We spoke to Chandor about “Triple Frontier,” its thematic similarities to his other movies, and, of course, working with Netflix.
This project has had such a long journey, how exactly did you get on board here?
It’s really crazy because once we started shooting this movie it all came together [laughs] I wanted to do something as a director in which I hadn’t originally conceived the idea. Whether it was a book or an article or something. And so, I worked on “Deepwater Horizon” for almost a year and then when that kind of blew up, so to speak, I realized that I enjoyed the idea and the freedom, as a director, of having had the film not created from my own idea — ‘Deepwater’ was based on this fantastic New York Times writeup. In my first three movies, I had an idea and it stayed locked in my brain and whatever was splattered on the screen was what was in my head at the very beginning of the creative process. And I love that, but I did want to free myself up as a director so that I don’t feel trapped within my own imagination, and go into somebody else’s world, something I wouldn’t have thought up.
And so, when I left the ‘Deepwater’ project, I started looking for books and then Tom Hanks, of all people, called. He was attached to “Triple Frontier” but he thought he was too old for the part, but that’s what kickstarted my journey with this movie, an email from Tom Hanks [laughs] which said, “I love your work and would you take a look at this project I’m involved in,” which was so cool.
And then you read this insane true story that is a no-brainer for a screen adaptation.
And then I read it. I come from a family with a bunch of militaries, my grandfather and my dad were in combat. My dad, in fact, had a very intense experience in Vietnam. I would have never written this because of my dad’s connections with the military, and I don’t think I would have ever been able to combine a heist movie with any special forces vets. It just wouldn’t have been something that would have come to me or felt right. But when I read it, I realized it was kind of an amazing way to have this big, fun, and muscular adventure film but to also look at the post-war experience of veterans.
Our country has been at war now for almost 20 years, and there’s a whole generation of people my age that has fought these battles for us while we just go on with our daily lives and it seemed like a really fascinating way of combining these two very disparate elements that, frankly, I wouldn’t have come up with. It felt like a movie that as a director, I would have loved to make, but as a writer, I wouldn’t have been able to write. I jumped on board, didn’t think it would come together as quick as it did, but these things have a life of their own and, after a year or two, we finally got this thing off the ground.
It’s been five years since “A Most Violent Year.” So it must be good to get this one off your chest and hopefully kickstart a whole new phase of creativity again.
Some of that was needed time off. I had made three movies in four years and I also had kids growing up. It was going to be four movies in five years if I had done “Deepwater,” so it was too much. I was burnt out. I just went out and did a bunch of writing and now I’m ready to make those movies ready for the road. I did what I had to do, be at home, be with my family, recharge, do some writing. A big adventure movie like this one takes months and months to shoot, it was a long process but one that I’m super proud of.