Netflix has complicated
one of the longer-running debates in entertainment: What is a TV movie? The
simple answer is that a TV movie is something was made for TV. That isn't good
enough any more though. Take a look at something like Grace of Monaco.
That movie began as a potential Oscar bid for Nicole Kidman. It premiered at
the Cannes Film Festival. It couldn't find a US distributor and ended up making
its US Premiere on the Lifetime TV network. So...it's a TV movie? Films are
getting so easy to make that you can't use budget or turnaround time to judge
them. Steven Soderbergh and Sean Baker are shooting movies using Iphones, after
all. The level of star attached to movies isn't an indicator either. Even
A-list talent is showing up in the most forgettable of TV movies. The TV movie
debate used to be complicated by HBO with their in-house productions. No matter
how good they were, there was always something about HBO movies though that
screamed "not a theatrical release". I love Something The Lord
Made. I've seen it countless times. But I never confused it for a
theatrical release. There's an HBO formula or house style that is undeniable.
Now there's
Netflix. We call it TV, because that's how we think of home entertainment.
However, it's not TV. It's Netflix (Sorry HBO. The slogan works better here).
Since Netflix has moved into the movie distribution business, it's become a
judgment call about how to classify a movie. Roma is clearly a
"theatrical film". To All The Boys I've Loved Before is more
similar to a Disney Channel movie (OK, probably Freeform). Documentaries have
always existed in their own realm but tend to default to calling anything over
80 minutes and told in one installment a "theatrical film".
At the end of the
day, it shouldn't really matter how a movie is classified. It's either good or
it's not. Most horror movies I love barely got theatrical releases. The only
way I would've ever seen them is steaming or rentals. That doesn't change
whether I like them or not. Many indie dramas play better in the intimate confines
of the small screen. I think the last big debate about the theatrical
experience is the blockbuster. Can a movie be a blockbuster if it doesn't
technically make any money?
In my mind,
"blockbuster" has two definitions. There's a 'blockbuster production'.
That's something with the financial investment of a movie that's meant to be a
hit. The amount spent can be offset by the A-list talent assembled. Basically,
it's any movie that's clearly being made as a big financial play by the studio.
You could maybe say, it's a movie with blockbuster intent. A 'true blockbuster'
is a financial mega hit. Regardless of the budget, it's a movie that tops the
box office in a given year. More technically, it's a major hit with an
immediate nationwide release. That's why Jaws is the first blockbuster.
Before that, most movies, even big ones released in phases, expanding over
time. Instead of that, Jaws opened wide right away and advertised to make an
immediate splash. When you consider that, you could argue that a blockbuster is
most defined by how it does its opening weekend. So, in 2002, Spider-Man
became a true blockbuster by destroying the previous opening weekend box office
record. That same year, My Big Fat Greek Wedding made $240 million,
becoming the highest grossing RomCom of all time, but never had a weekend
bigger than $12 million. That's a hit. Maybe not a blockbuster.
This is all a
painfully roundabout way to get to Triple Frontier. What the hell is
this movie? It's a Netflix movie. As far as I can tell, it never even screened
at a film festival. It seems to have been made for Netflix, not acquired after
the fact. I don't know the budget, but one look at it tells me it was a lot.
Ben Affleck and Oscar Isaac are A-list talent (Check the box office numbers). Even
Charlie Hunnam and Garrett Hedlund have some decent-sized movies. Director J.C.
Chandor has spent a decade on the fringe of Oscar attention. Triple Frontier
is a big movie, global production with plenty of action and thrills.
Despite all this,
I still came away from the movie thinking this didn't feel like a theatrical
release. Not lesser than Black Hawk Down or Lone Survivor, but
different. I'm sure some of this is my own neuroses getting in the way. I don't
think most people even care about the difference or try to notice. It will be
interesting looking back in 10 years how Netflix releases will be looked at
versus what the other movie studios produce. Will the movies still feel
smaller? Could Mission: Impossible 7 be released exclusively on Netflix
and still feel like a global hit the way M:I - Fallout did last summer?
Or will there always be a stigma?
Alright, alright.
That's long enough talking around the movie. Let's get to the main attraction*.
*Which will get
maybe half the word count of the introductory rant. That's my style.
Triple Frontier is a very familiar
movie. I think I mean that as a good thing,
but it puts a ceiling on my appreciation of it. I didn't take many notes
on the movie. Almost all of them are about how all the music is obvious. We can
all agree that using CCR for any post-WWII war movie has been done enough.
Using "Masters of War" wasn't that subtle either. Even though the
stars of the film are Gen-X or Millennial (barely), it's clear that the target
audience for this are Boomers.
The basic
structure of the story - circumstances slowly cause a huge profit to keep
diminishing until almost nothing is left - is one I've seen many times. And the
"one last job" premise is as common a trope as there is. Greed
consuming people. I've seen that a bunch of times. None of this is that different
from Chandor's previous films. Margin Call* and A Most Violent Year
are both about attempted empires crumbling due to their own mistakes. Triple
Frontier is just the most familiar package he's put that same story in.
*A really
excellent and underrated movie that maybe never get a second life thanks to
Kevin Spacey.
I should point out
that I liked the movie quite a bit. I liked it as much as I could, given the
restraints. Oscar Isaac has a knack for playing somewhat duplicitous
protagonists. I don't get to see Ben Affleck is supporting roles often. Like
his character, it feels like he's doing the movie a favor back taking this
smaller role. I wrote the word "overqualified" several times in my
notes. If you told me to make a five man Ocean's 11 crew of
gruff, Special Ops guys, Isaac, Affleck, Garrett Hedlund, Charlie Hunnam, and
Pedro Pascal all would've made my list*. They wear beards and five o'clock
shadows well.
*Also included in
the list: anyone in the movie Warrior (Joel Edgerton, Tom Hardy, Frank Grillo).
I think what makes
the movie unique is the pacing. The raid of the crime lord's house happens
about midway through the movie. The rest of it is one long getaway, and it's
not always an exciting one. Sometimes it's arduous and taxing. The devolution
of the protagonists from heroes to villains is slow and earned. This isn't the
slick heist movie that it at first appeared to be. They had a great plan and it
fell apart because of their own poor decisions more than outside forces.
I hope that the
end isn't a set up for a sequel. I rather like it as an open-ended idea of what
Oscar Isaac's Pope does next. That said, I'd almost certainly watch a sequel.
Verdict: Weakly Recommend
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