Triple Frontier stars in Singapore: Charlie Hunnam restoring faith in Hollywood

Disney should take a page from the Netflix anti-leak playbook. I had heard absolutely nothing about Triple Frontier before receiving the invite to attend the press conference that was held here in Singapore on Saturday (March 9).

On Friday, producer Chuck Roven with Batfleck Daredevil Jennifer Garner’s husband Ben Affleck (Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice), Charlie Hunnam (Pacific Rim) and Garrett Hedlund (Tron: Legacy) in tow, graced the Marina Bay Sands red carpet for a meet and greet that normally doesn’t accompany a film like this.

Triple Frontier is the story of five former Special Forces types (the aforementioned stars, plus Oscar Isaac and Pedro Pascal) who team up to rob a South American drug lord.

At the Saturday press conference, Affleck described the film as “more than a military movie”, which I felt was somewhat misleading as this actually leans more towards a heist movie than anything else (according to the press release).

It’s also hard to get excited about a film which I know so little about. The marketing campaign is obviously banking on the star power of the film to pull in the audience, but it takes a little more than that to get people behind a movie that has come almost out of nowhere. Fortunately, Netflix can bank on its millions of subscribers.

The presser also got off to a rather placid start with the stars fielding benign questions like “what do you like about Singapore” or “who was the alpha male on the set”. But it was Charlie Hunnam who actually provided some insight into the filmmaking process, According to Hunnam, some ex-special forces soldiers were hired to add a layer of realism to the film:

“There was a moment in the film where I sustain an injury and in true Hollywood dynamic, was overacting the moment. And he came over and gave me a couple of experiences where he himself had sustain massive injuries and this is just the reality, you need to hold it together. It was amazing to get that kind sort of insight in real time to make sure we were handling these situations correctly”

While Affleck and Hedlund also shared their experiences on set, they could not match Hunnam’s enthusiasm. Hedlund did have some meandering anecdotes, but Affleck felt about as exciting as a rock in a frying pan. It was as if he was still channeling Batman.

The real star of the press con was Hunnam, who really does go out of his way to engage his fans. Just check him out in action at the Friday event: