Triple Threat

Chinese kung fu champ Tiger Hu Chen, Thai martial arts sensations Tony Jaa (Ong-Bak) and JeeJa Yanin (Chocolate), and Indonesian action star Iko Uwais (The Raid) represent the East; US multi-discipline black belt Michael Jai White and Brit bruiser Scott Adkins represent the West. With such an impressive line-up, Triple Threat could have been up there with The Raid (and its sequel), The Warrior King, and Ong Bak as one of the best action films of the last twenty years. Sadly, it isn't.

The cast cannot be held responsible: they do what they were hired to do -- kick ass (nobody really expected Oscar-winning performances). It's up to stuntman turned director Jesse V. Johnson to shoulder the blame, his handling of the action failing to show his more-than-capable performers in the best light. The plot is uninspired but it allows for plenty of shooting and punching and kicking; unfortunately, the fight scenes lack impact thanks to dreadful camerawork and duff editing, whilst the gunplay relies on CGI for much of the damage inflicted.

With a skilled action director such as Prachya Pinkaew or Gareth Evans at the helm, Triple Threat might have worked despite the rather predictable script, but in the hands of Johnson, the film is a frustrating wasted opportunity.

5/10, minus one point for killing off the lovely JeeJa Yanin way too soon. She goes out in fine style (reduced to a bloody mess by a grenade launcher), but she really deserved to be given as much screen time as her male co-stars.

If I downloaded a movie from the Bahamas, does this make me a Pirate of the Caribbean? Because this pirate's film didn't have sub-titles for the non-English parts... aaaaaarrrrg!

I spent most of the film's running time hoping that these famous martial art pros get to work together again in a film worthy of their talents, instead of this ridiculous script that had more plot issues and was more predictable than a soft porn film. A 5th grader could've written a better story that made actual sense.

The fight choreography was excellent, especially towards the end, but also limited with the screenplay that needed work from its muddled narrative about criss-crossing allegiances, noble billionaires, shadowy criminal enterprises, and one guy out for vengeance that had dozens of opportunities from the get-go, but instead risked and/or allowed civilians to die before the obvious end result.

Don't see it for the plot, see it for the fight scenes... these guys all deserve a better story. It's a very generous 6/10 from me - solely for the all star cast and their multiple martial-arts discipline fight scenes.

I totally get people who are dissapointed in this. If you take the talent at hand, you'd imagine something more spectacular overall. And it's not just the very predictable story, I was expecting that. But cliches get boring fast and the fight scenes are good, but that is not enough to elevate it to a level that would make this a classic, which the cast would be deserving of.

Dialog is kind of wooden most of the time too (though there are some noteable and great exceptions, some may go over your head, since it is only 50 % in english, did not do a count, so that is estimate of course), so beware of that too. If you are just here for the action you will be mostly satisfied though, so I guess primary objective achieved

With a cast like this, I was expecting The Raid, Ong Bak, Boyka or The Night Comes for Us quality.

My advice is don't build your hopes up.

I can look past awful dialogue and ridiculous situations if the action is good but theres nowhere near enough to keep you distracted from what is, a bad movie.

What a disappointment man. The script is atrocious n the character development is nada. The direction is lol. During a major shootout, a girl runs away like a piece of cake n while running away we see ppl in the background doing their routine stuff as if they r deaf n blind to the commotion of the shootout.

Anyways, fellas like me may not care about acting, script, direction or character development if it's an action film provided ther is tons of bone shattering, jaw breaking, brutal fight choreography but this lousy film has nothing redeeming inspite of some of my favorites like Scott Adkins, Michael Jai White n Iko Uwais. What a waste of talent man. O boy, we even have Tony Jaa, Tiger Hu Chen n Michael Bisping but again a total wastage of action heroes.

The film starts with a non stop gun action sequence but not at all memorable or intense. In the beginning, ther is a small duel between Iko Uwais n Tony Jaa which raises audiences' expectations but believe me it turns out to b duds. Ther is a muay thai ring fight but again nothing impactful. The duel between Iko Uwais n Michael Jai White is lousy. Jai White needs to lose some weight man.

Seeing Uwais without Silat n knife fight n Jai White without his 360 n 720 kicks is cheating man. Both Uwais n White is totally wasted. In fact in both of their last films, they did pretty good. Uwais in Mile 22 n Jai White in Dragged across the street.... We have Tony Jaa who is looking old n tired with a lousy hairstyle. Tony Jaa without his parkour is wasted. Now we have my fav Scott Adkins who is given a meaty footage but his fight with Jaa ain't impactful. Come on give us some Boyka action man. Tiger Hu Chen really needs a good barber. Lousy babycut hairstyle.

The film has lots of kicks, punches, fights n gun shot sequences but none of it impactful or memorable. Ther is a scene of a gun blasting a body into mincemeat. That's it.