NETFLIX: Triple Frontier (J.C. Chandor, USA, 2019)

The war on drugs, having grown into the size and scale of a “traditional” war, has established as a perfect example of a never-ending conflict. The United States government sends advisors whose advice doesn’t improve the conditions of the Latin American countries that have been torn apart by violence and institutional corruption. Private security companies reap a profit as well, but it is a soul-wrecking job for men like Santiago “Pope” García (Oscar Isaac), a weary advisor who leads the most recent assault against the operations of drug lord Lorea. Police officers are taken down by bazookas and heavy fire, before Santiago wins the fight with a precise, calculated firing of his grenade launcher. Precision is one of the major motifs in this story, and it appears constantly, imbuing every aspect of the action scenes. Santiago wins the fight for the country’s police, which proceed to execute most of their prisoners, after one of them begs for his life declaring that he knows that Lorea is hiding in the jungle, in a house that holds all his cash money. Santiago verifies this information with his informer, the beautiful Yovanna (Adria Arjona) whose brother has become involved in Lorea’s business. Yovanna wants herself and her brother out of Lorea’s grip, while Santiago wants out of his life, wishing to cash out with two big scores: killing Lorea and taking his money as a final payment for a lifetime of thankless soldiering.

Santiago assembles a team, Seven Samurai style, of former Special Forces comrades with whom he wishes to share the money and a final successful mission. Francisco “Catfish” Morales (Pedro Pascal), a pilot that is both grounded in personality and grounded by the revoking of his license after a cocaine-smuggling charge; Martial arts expert Ben Miller (Garret Hedlund) who moonlights as an MMA fighter; and Ben’s brother Captain William “Ironhead” Miller (Charlie Hunnam) a blood-knight who relishes his skills and lifestyle as a “warrior”, and who has trouble adjusting living to a civilian lifestyle, especially when he’s prone to strangling people for not moving their carts at grocery store. William’s reputation precedes him as he makes a living in the pep-talk circuit in different army bases, when Santiago comes forward with his offer to take out Lorea and take his money. William will join him as long as he convinces Captain Tom “Redfly” Davis to join them. Tom is a divorced father who fails at selling crappy condos, and who struggles to pay his alimony. He is the tactician of the team, and he has a Sherlockian mind. He is very hesitant to join Santiago, but his lack of money, family obligations and peer pressure finally convince him to advice the team and join them.

Triple Frontier is a military heist movie disguising a Greek tragedy about fate, greed and the stories that we tell ourselves about our lives in order to motivates us. The team’s plan moves forward and J.C. Chandor (director of the great A Most Violent Year, Margin Call and All Is Lost) directs these scenes with a purity of style and clearness, his suspense scenes allowed to breathe and develop in due time. The action scenes are realistic as mentioned, quick and precise. Triple Frontier is an action movie that eschews all the vices of action movies of the 21^st century: there are no constant extreme close-ups, jittery cam, quick editing, confusing geography. Everything is as clearly framed as a drama, because that’s what it is. Things go right for the team, and then things do not, unravelling piece by piece. One is caught in a hurricane of emotions: on the one hand and by the nature of the genre, we expect our protagonists to achieve their mission and get the money that they feel they deserve, and we empathize with them. But once we catch glimpses of some of their darker sides and they make some brutal choices, our loyalty as viewers vacillates. And that is a perfect summary of the relationship between the way we romanticize soldiers and what they actually do. At one point, the characters point out that without having a flag on their shoulders, everything they do will be considered murder and robbery. The line is that thin.

In Chandor’s and Mark Boal’s script, things are not clear-cut, and even some narrative aspects are purposefully kept in the dark. Tom suspects that Yovanna might be lying about her relationship with Santiago. She insists she is telling the truth. Tom moves on, but he still believes that she is lying to cover up something. This suspicion is not solved, but is one of many such aspects of the movie that makes it interesting. The number of tragedies and accidents that occur in the film cannot be clearly traced to a single source, besides the fact that the mission should not have been undertaken in the first place. Every character’s personal flaws and motivation help carve the tragic path of each character. Tom wants the money to take care of his family and not feel like a civilian loser to the point that he ignores his logical side; William is so overcome by his warrior’s pride and by his identity as a man of violence that he takes decisions based on this idea of himself; Santiago talks about wanting to take out Lorea because he’s a virus that has infested the country, and he wants to take the money out of a sense of entitlement for his years of service as an agent of the world’s police, but killing Lorea won’t stop the war on drugs or institutional corruption—and he will be replaced by one or more men like him, or worse—and his justification for taking drug money is extremely thin. I must admit that I was disappointed in the casting of Lorea, because I didn’t find him an intimidating or memorable presence, but that’s also the point: he’s a generic villain, just another drug kingpin among hundreds. The true antagonist of the movie is each character’s foibles and Providence itself, which gives and takes as it sees fit.

A film where every character choice matters and every action has a consequence, Triple Frontier is unlike many films today. Shot in gorgeous locations and with a classical sense of framing and editing, it is a worthy follow-up for great Netflix movies like The Outlaw King. This is a movie I wished I could have seen in the big screen. I liked it that much. In the meantime, I will enjoy repeat viewings of this thrilling modern-day version of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

And Soon the Darkness (Robert Fuest, UK, 1970)

A good weekend option for some weekend thrills on the road. We associate road movies with cars or horses, but cycling across the French countryside is another option that, on the surface, sounds like a slow, idyllic adventure with no great action. That is not the experience of the two heroines of And Soon the Darkness, a low-key thriller that packs quite a punch. Nottingham nurses Jane (Pamela Franklin, who I loved in Hell House and watched this movie as the next movie to check out in her filmography) and Cathy (Michelle Dotrice) ride in their bicycles in rural France and come across a mysterious, handsome man wearing sunglasses (Sandor Éles). Cathy is interested in him, while Jane wants to continue with her trip. The adventurous Cathy remains behind, while the more cautious Jane continues, only to lose track of her friend and come across some strange people who make her feel really uneasy, especially when she finds out that this particular area has a dark history involving young female tourists.

The sense of dread and paranoia will become familiar to any person who has travelled to places that are unknown to them, especially where there is a lot of wooded areas where anything can happen, if one strays far off the road. When one takes into account the number of crimes against travelling women in the world today, then the fears of And Soon the Darkness become even more tangible. Shot in a very classical manner by Robert Fuest, the shocking moments are more jarring because of the contrast with this style, and while one might expect (I certainly did) that the movie will have slow parts, its handling of the minimalist story was effective. And Franklin is so real in every moment of fright and anxiety, holding the screen on her own for a long time, making us feel even more dread for whatever is around the corner. A good choice to watch on late summer/early autumn afternoons.

Eye of the Devil (J. Lee Thompson, UK, 1966)

I saw the trailer for "Eye of the Devil" on TMC many years ago and I was caught by how fetching Sharon Tate looked in it. Seeing that it also starred Donald Pleasance, I knew that I had to watched it. Many years passed and I watched "The Fearless Vampire Killers" way before I finally got around to watching "Eye of the Devil".

It's an interesting picture because it has that very moody, very clear-looking black-and-white 60s photography that really helps the film overall. It was directed by J. Lee Thompson, one of the more succesful, multi-genre British workman directors. He makes a lot of interesting choices editing-wise that signal that this is an artistic occult-thriller, not a run of the mill Sunday afternoon horror flick to scare the kiddies. For example, the beginning features a quick-fire montage of scenes from future scenes from the movie intersped with a character's journey in the subway. It's like the Mission Impossible movie credits sequences, picquing our interest in what's to come.

Alas, I found the movie to be very half-baked in its plotting, sequences and character development. David Niven and Deborah Kerr are the classy starring couple. He is the wealthy scion of a vineyard-owning family, she is his devoted wife. He is summoned back home by a sinister priest played by Pleasance and tells his wife that it is best if she remained home in Paris (all the characters are French, by the way) with their children. She doesn't listen, so she follows him to his vast, medieval estate, where she's eyed by suspicious peasants, treated with evasive aloofness by her husband's aunt and stalked by the DeCarayn siblings, Odile (Sharon Tate) and Christian (David Hemmings). She is a cool-as-ice witch all dressed in black, he is a super-gifted hunter with bow and arrow who wears a snazzy vest. If they hade me an Avengers movie in 1967, they both would've made awesome Scarlet Witch and Hawkeye versions.

David Niven is good, but his character is so reserved and haunted by an awful secret, so most of the time he actually looks really disinterested in what's going on. Kerr is great, but there's only so much that she can do with the two major emotions she displays: bewilderement and terror. Pleasance looks really creepy, but that's basically all he is given to do..."look" creepy and creepily look at people and things. The DeCaray siblings are the most interesting characters, especially Odile and her haunting, glacial looks and line readings (the camera loves Tate, and the close-up-shots of her face, sometimes zooming in or zooming back, are really bewitching...sorry). But like I said, nothing is really done effectively. Many characters appear and dissappear without much effect in what's going on. The mysterious secret harbored in the estate can be guessed by anyone who's seen a movie about pagan cults before.

From a genre and historical point of view, it's interesting to note that this movie was shot and shelved in 1966 and released in 67, six to five years before "The Wicker Man". This means "Eye of the Devil" was a pioneer in the "pagan cult" sub-genre that was part of the 70's wave of horror films. However, being the first sometimes does mean best, and this is a fine case of that. There's only so much that arthouse editing can do with such a barebones story with little to say about anything. I did enjoy parts of it, and recommend it to fans of any of the cast, which acquit themselves with what they have.