Synopsis
The movie begins with Ironhead (Charlie Hunnam) talking to a bunch of military guys. He tells them about a time he choked a guy so badly that he was pissing himself and nearly killed him. This was at a grocery store and he did it because the man skipped him in a line. This touches on the popular theme that is in movies about war veterans. It’s extremely hard for them to fit back into society. Throughout the movie, this same sentiment is echoed. Later we see an operation take place with several soldiers trying to subdue a base. After they accomplished that we learned that the goal of this mission is to gain information as to where Lorea may be. Lorea is a man of wide influence and is apparently a very bad man that has control over Pope’s (Oscar Issac) country. The mission was successful when Pope’s informant tells him where he can find Lorea. Pope’s been looking for him for years. With this news, Pope goes to his old war buddies to complete a mission to go after Lorea. While recruiting we see the many different ways war veterans are trying to live in society. Each one of them is trying to find a new way of living but it’s clear that their lives are all lacking in a way by not being in the army. The money that they will get from this one mission should set them all up for life. The money and thrill of doing what they love again caused everyone Pope wanted to join his mission. The group consists of Pope, Ironhead, Redfly (Ben Affleck), Catfish (Pedro Pascal), and Ben (Garrett Hedlund).
When they first get to Lorea’s compound and do a bit of reconnaissance. Redfly is able to immediately asses the situation and figure out what they would need to do to have a successful mission. After the reconnaissance, the team finds out that Pope has been lying to them about the funding of the mission. Instead of the corporation that Pope works for, it’s really Pope himself that paid their salary and resources for the mission. This causes everyone to pause but they eventually become convinced that they are the best men for the job. They see the window of opportunity and see this as a very doable job. The operation is soon underway and everything is going well so far. They are able to infiltrate the compound and eliminate all immediate threats. There were two early problems: there was no sign of Lorea and no idea where the money is. Pope realized that the room smells like paint and that’s when they broke open the wall to find stacks of cash. Lorea came out of a secret entrance where he was able to get Ironhead on his side before he himself was killed.
The sequence of packing up the money is when the first sign of unease within the group made itself evident. They already had more than enough bags and yet Redfly wanted them to keep going because they had enough time. The rest of them thought regardless of the time they should still leave now. Redfly having a tactically brilliant mind causes him to feel a different weight when thinking of all the mistakes he’s made. This shows in every decision he makes throughout the movie. This, among him having a family, is what really gave his character more life than the rest of them. Catfish is the least developed in the movie. After leaving the compounds with those bags of money things only went downhill. They had a getaway plane and on their escape, they didn’t account for the weight of all the money which limited how high the plane can rise. They had to crash land in a farmer’s village. The locals flocked to the money and it caused a debate between the two parties. Tension was raised to a point where Redfly felt no choice but to shoot at the locals, killing several. Pope was able to bargain with the village elder. Giving him a significant amount of money for the lives of the people Redfly killed on top of paying for donkeys. After that, the group continued to make their escape.
They go across and up the mountains until they are fired at. It was the youth from the same village they came from. Their attack was successful as they were able to kill Redfly before they themselves died. With Redfly gone the group’s main concern was to get his body back home and take as much money as they can home. Mostly all of the money was thrown down a cave. They had to make one last push through a city on the coast with hopes of making it on a boat that’ll take them to safety. After accomplishing that we would next see everyone in a board room where we learn that they walked out with just over 5 million dollars. Which is split 5 ways. When given the decision everyone decides to give their piece of the money to Redfly’s family. But hope is still there when Ironhead leaves Pope with the coordinates of where they threw the money into the cave.
Interpretation
Overall this was a good film. The themes were definitely evident early and constantly reoccurring throughout the film. I was happy with the cast of characters and the different stories that followed this very specific framework. Normally most of a movie like this consists of the planning of the big operation with the entire third act being the job itself. This movie focused mostly on the escape from the job and all the complications that come with that. For that reason, this movie followed a different pace which was new and refreshing. A lot of times throughout the film the morality of the characters was put into question. Very often they either did or had strong reasons to do immoral things to get the job done. This involves killing the informant before she ever left for Australia or killing the village people to protect their money. These tough decisions that the character had to face gave the movie more life and depth to the characters as a whole. Leaving all the money with Redfly’s family really left most of their efforts with nothing to show for it. But that revelation can be changed if Pope somehow finds a way to retrieve the buried money.
