BEFORE: Just a couple of days away now from my planned "back-to-school" movies, even though I personally don't go back to school any more, I still mark each September with SOMETHING along the lines of school. Earlier this year I watched "Night School", somewhat out of place perhaps, but I needed to keep my linking chain alive.
I'm also gearing up for New York Comic Con, which is one of the biggest annual events for me, now that I don't go out to San Diego any more. NYCC takes place in October now, but I'm old enough to remember when it took place in May - and before that, it happened in February, which was just stupid. Who wants to attend a show in NYC in a revealing costume when it's so freaking cold outside? God forbid you have to stand in line outside to get in to the convention. And then if you have to wear a winter coat, where are you going to put that while you're at the convention? Who's going to run a coat-check for 10,000 people? No, moving it to October was the best plan, because now cosplayers can wear their killer costume again on Halloween, which is just three weeks later. And thanks to global warming, the first weekend in October is now usually pretty warm - see, I knew there had to be an upside somewhere to such a global catastrophic weather trend.
Charlie Hunnam carries over from "King Arthur: Legend of the Sword".
THE PLOT: Loyalties are tested when five friends and former special forces operatives reunite to take down a South American drug lord, unleashing a chain of unintended consequences.
AFTER: I'm still chipping away at that Netflix list - got it down under 90 items now, which is better than 100, maybe I can get it down to 75 before the end of the year if I'm lucky and persistent. Certainly I'm finding fewer and fewer new films there, at the start of each month I go over those "What's new on Netflix" internet lists, and rarely add anything to my queue. I think this is partially due to the progress I've made, even with older films, because if Netflix adds a bunch of retro stuff, chances are I've already seen that - but I think also it's a case of diminishing returns, plus there are so many streaming services now that Netflix isn't necessarily getting all the best stuff. Sorry, but I call it like I see it. Still, I'm worried that once we hit the looming Oscar qualification season, there will be a flood of new films on Netflix (and Academy screeners) for me to add to my lists. I've been holding the line, but I'm braced for impact, and it's all going to hit at once come January - if I'm not careful, my totals are going to skyrocket.
But that's a worry for another day - my goal each day right now is to chip away at the lists and try to reduce them, or at least keep them from getting any larger. I need to maintain a certain level of unwatched content, or I won't be able to make my connections in December as I plan out a chain for the coming year. I'm going to try to resist doing that until I'm on break, starting around November 5, and there's a long way to go between now and then.
Now, I don't want to give away too much here, so maybe I should just compare this film to other movies that sort of followed similar stories. Most recently, "Sicario: Day of the Soldado", since both films feature U.S. military guys trying to take down a south of the border drug lord, and make it look like he was taken out by a rival gang. (OK, one film's set in Mexico, the other's in South America, but it's the same general idea.). This also reminds me a bit of "The Expendables" (a group of freelance operatives who have known each other for a long time) only the stars are younger here. I did a few military ops films back in January ("13 Hours", "12 Strong", "Seal Team Six") but at some point this stops being a military action film and it turns into more of a heist film. Ultimately it may be closer to "Ocean's 11" than "The Dirty Dozen". At one point it almost seems like it's going to be an updated "Treasure of the Sierra Madre", but then they switch it up and it becomes more like "The Flight of the Phoenix". Classic film fans will know what I'm talking about, I don't want to say much more for risk of spoiling the twists here.
But this is about a group of guys who've worked together before, and they know what they're doing when they work together, at least on military operations. This job is different, however, and not just because it's not sanctioned by the U.S. government. The game changed, but these guys went into the new game and tried to use their old tactics, and maybe that wasn't the best plan. I'm going to fall back on the Comic-Con analogy for just a bit (because that's MY battle, my use of warfare tactics). I'm going back into the fight (and if you've ever tried to run a booth or a table at Comic-Con, or just walk around the place, you know it's a struggle). However, now I'm over 50 and I can't do things the same way I did when I was 35. So I'm planning to only work two days at the con, and let others do a lot of the heavy lifting (both literally and figuratively).
But the wars I fight aren't always physical - I'm really good at calling up companies on the phone and complaining until I get results, that's almost my superpower. So let's say that recently there was an organization running an event (I won't say the name of the company or the event, but duh...) and my company had paid for our table, then a month later got an e-mail from the event coordinator, asking me when we were going to pay our bill. Umm, how about last month, when you cashed our check? So I sent this guy (again, no names), a copy of the cancelled check, and everything was fine until we tried to order an extra badge, one month after that. Instead of getting an invoice for the badge, we got an invoice for the badge AND the table, which we'd paid for two months prior. After proving AGAIN that we paid by sending a copy of the cancelled check, I was starting to wonder what was going on here - why couldn't the accounting department catch up with the sales rep, why couldn't we get an invoice that rightfully showed that we paid our bill, which we did?
I just couldn't risk showing up on the first day of the event and not being granted access, so I did what I always do - call someone else to get results. Because I started to have some doubts about the sales rep, if he couldn't get us an invoice marked "PAID" or he couldn't get someone in finance to do their job. (At this point I was thinking, "Umm, exactly what's going on here, is someone not doing their job, or is this some kind of scam?"). Right after I was directed to someone in accounting, and left that person a detailed message about the situation, I got an e-mail from the rep, which asked me to PLEASE not call the finance department, it would only make resolving our account more complicated. I felt this was a bit like a restaurant owner saying, "PLEASE don't give your order to the waiter, that will only slow things down in the kitchen." OK, so what do you suggest as an alternative? I'm still waiting - the battle is still being fought.
The movie, right - its got a lot of great action in it, blah blah blah, some drama among the comrades, and if you like Ben Affleck, you'll like this movie. Heck, even if you HATE Ben Affleck, you might find a part in there midway through that you might enjoy.
I didn't get the meaning of the title when watching the film, but from the Trivia section on IMDB I learned that Three Frontiers is the Spanish name for an area of the Amazon forest, where the borders of Brazil, Peru and Colombia meet. They never mentioned this in the film, for that matter they didn't even say what country the drug lord's estate was in, which seems like an odd omission.
Also starring Ben Affleck (last seen in "Runner Runner"), Oscar Isaac (last seen in "W.E."), Garrett Hedlund (last seen in "On the Road"), Pedro Pascal (last seen in "The Great Wall"), Adria Arjona, Hakeemshady Mohamed, Jeovanny Rodriguez, Juan Camilo Castillo, Reynaldo Gallegos (Logan), Madeline Wary, Michael Benjamin Hernandez, Carlos Linares (last seen in "Bright"), Pedro Lopez (last seen in "Casa de mi Padre"), Toneey Acevedo, Gustavo Gomez, Pedro Haro (last seen in "Snatched"), Juan Martinez, Sheila Vand (last seen in "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot"), Christine Horn, George Hayn,
RATING: 6 out of 10 A-list actors (who were once attached to this film, but dropped out)
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