New to Netflix: Triple Frontier

Starring: Ben Affleck, Oscar Isaac, Charlie Hunnam, Garrett Hedlund, Pedro Pascal, Adria Arjona, Reynaldo Gallegos

Director: J.C. Chandor

We open on Santiago 'Pope' Garcia (Oscar Isaac), a private military contractor who is leading a successful raid on a drug cartel's secret hideout in a disco. He learns through his informant Yovanna (Adria Arjona), who was at the disco to warn her brother, that the kingpin Lorea (Reynaldo Gallegos) is hiding out in his jungle safe house with all his cash. She makes regular deliveries to him there and agrees to help them steal the money as long as Santiago promises to get her and her brother out of the country. Knowing how he and his former military team have fallen on hard times since they served, he recruits his small team: Tom 'Redfly' Davis (Ben Affleck), William 'Ironhead' Miller (Charlie Hunnam), Ben Miller (Garrett Hedlund) and Francisco 'Catfish' Morales (Pedro Pascal). The team plans everything down to the last detail and the heist begins. Although they get the money, things don't go according to plan as Ironhead is injured and they have to shoot their way out. With the Cartel in tow, the men must now do everything they can to make it out of South America with the money.

J.C. Chandor arrived on the film scene in a big way with Margin Call in 2011, and received a surprise screenplay nomination. He followed that up with the stunning one man show All is Lost with Robert Redford in 2013 and the crime epic A Most Violent Year in 2014. He returns here with another crime yarn, and while all of his films could be classified as thrillers, Triple Frontier marks his debut to full blown action. While his previous films wouldn't have indicated he was capable of making a tense action heist thriller, he proves the naysayers wrong. Chandor is a very gifted filmmaker and he continues to show that here. The action is impressively well shot, easy to follow and thrilling.

Written by Chandor and Mark Boal, who won the Academy Award for The Hurt Locker, the dialogue is sharp and for the most part, the camaraderie between the team is believable. While the cast is quite impressive and the actors all perform well, they aren't given much character-wise except what is on the surface. When we should be caring what is going to happen to the men and rooting for them to get out, we really aren't. We only care by default. It's a shame, because I've enjoyed the past Chandor movies for their strong character development.

While the first two acts are thrilling, it doesn't seem to know how to wrap things up. The third act rings of false tension and tries to redeem the characters in some way, but it doesn't really work.

Despite the flaws, Chandor is still a terrific filmmaker and I can't wait to see what he does next.