American Soldiering: Hunter Killer & Triple Frontier

2018, Donovan Marsh (Spud) -- Netflix
2019, J.C. Chandor (All is Lost) -- Netflix


Hollywood is the reflection in the American mirror, with what is being represented reflecting back upon itself ad infinitum. While one side sees what is coming out of the collective film making brain as commentary on what is going on down there, others might see it as the mouthpiece. Its both.

Take the American military. They have been in continuous action in some place over there, since... forever. But when I was a kid, these actions were defined, they were wars, they were things with beginnings and ends. But now, it just goes on and on and the ideal that they are defending themselves from someone seems to have escaped. Its more like these actions represent America stating it is still a power, against anyone.

These movies don't intentionally, at least not entirely, comment on that. But really, they do. Was that unclear enough for you? I think that is how the American heart feels about soldiers these days; entirely conflicted.

In Triple Frontier we have a squad of elite soldiers, all post-deployment. Some are working, some less so. But all are influenced and corrupted by the days when they killed people for a living. Ironhead (Charlie Hunnam) runs classes where he convinces soldiers to redeploy. Redfly (Ben Affleck) is broke and desperate and more than a little lost. Pope (Oscar Isaac) is running consultant on police ops in Mexico. Catfish (Pedro Pascal) is fighting drug charges. And Pope comes along to convince them to help him with a recon mission against a cartel boss. What he pitches is basic recon, a few days and some easy cash, where his old buddies protect him. What he really wants is to kill the druglord and take his massive amount of money. This is the elevator pitch of the movie, the basis for the trailer, but that little conflict of interest (are they now hired killers?) is only a small bit of the movie.

I have been reading a lot about plot these days, as I try to apply some sort of structure to my writing bug. I generally never see structure in anything fiction, but here I saw the "heap some trouble on the main character, and then heap even more" concept from pulp adventures. The recon become robbery/murder goes expectedly south once they see exactly how much money they are taking; greed takes over the time they had allotted. And the rest of the movie is about them escaping, hopefully with all the money.

Now we are in a road movie, an escape movie and the real plot comes out -- the conflict, external and internal, of who they were and who they are now, and what THIS instance in their lives says. They argue, they accuse and they deal with terrible situations. The problem is that most of the actual cruz of that dialogue must have been cut to just deal with the action and tension, because every time these stressor points come up, they seem to fall flat. Nothing really rings true, the characters are more the cutout figures of Tough Soldiers than they are Thoughtful Killers. The movie wants to be more than it is, and despite some great scenes with Oscar Isaac and Ben Affleck, there really is nothing deep here.

Meanwhile in Hunter Killer all we have is cardboard. There is nothing here but a desire to depict American soldiers as the action heroes many must believe they all are. This movie is about moral choices and tough choices and the Right Thing always working out. Gerard Butler, who is not even American, comes along as the new captain on a submarine, the sailor who worked himself up through the ranks and not just assigned because of what school he went to, and who his family is. And his first act is to lead his crew into Arctic waters near Russia, to recover another American sub, now missing.

A coup is taking place in Russia and they get mixed up in it. This movie is by the books, so unbelievably straight forward that I was surprised they didn't do a scene where the sub gets damaged and the captain has to allow some sailors to drown, to save the rest of the boat. But no, this movie is about the soldiers (are military sailors soldiers or just guys on a boat?) getting it done. The American government decides to help the Russian Prime Minister survive his coup and send Butler and boat to bring him, and the American special forces team (led by Toby Stephens, also not American) sent to rescue said Prime Minister.

The only really thing I found of interest in this movie was looking at how newer subs must look on the interior. Back in the old days of sub warfare movies, everything was fuzzy green and blurry white screens and lots of buttons & dials. But now, we are digital, so the presence of active screens makes sense. I have been reading a lot of space opera, so what I saw mirrored a lot of spaceship interiors. Except ping, subs always have ping and guys on headphones concentrating.

What did strike me, as I watched the first one night in the hotel (Sault Ste-Marie for work) and the other, the next night following, was how different they presented Americans doing soldier work. And yet both wanted us to feel pretty much the same way about the brave boys -- that they are brave, daring and sacrifice a lot. But is that the current feel of the American public? Or are these movies recruitment drives. The first movie doesn't actually present what they end up dealing with, post deployment, in a positive light but you still get the idea of them Doing the Right Thing and how that is a Good Thing. Both movies are supposed to be just entertainment and NOT social commentary, but I cannot help but feel everything ends up being so even if it doesn't intend on it.