Triple Plus Two

I've tried to watch Triple Threat (2019) a half-dozen times or so. JustWatch.com says you can watch on Amazon Prime video. Then when I get to Prime, they either haven't heard of it, or let me know I could watch if I signed for a trial subscription to Hi-Yaa or some other service. Finally, I realized that I could look under "Other Ways to Watch", and there it was. Thanks, Prime.

Anyways, this is a monster mash of a movie. It stars martial artists Tony Jaa, Iko Uwais, Tiger Chen, Scott Adkins and Michael Jai White. (The German tagline was "Expendables without the retirees"). 

It starts with Tony Jaa and Tiger Chen, local guides, leading a team of western mercenaries, led by Michael Jai White through the jungle. When they get to the village, they attack. One of the villagers, Iko Uwais, wakes up to see his wife get killed. He comes out fighting and starts fighting Jaa. The mercenaries meanwhile break Scott Adkins out of his cell - although everyone warns them that he is a terrorist. Duh. So are they. They leave, and blow the place up, separating Jaa and Uwais - and possibly killing them. 

Some time later, Jaa and Chen are doing some underground fighting for money, having survived the massacre. Uwais finds them, and tracks them down to their small apartment, looking for revenge. But they explain to him that they were tricked and they want the same thing as him: revenge on White and Adkins. So they all get drunk together - then Uwais turns them into the police for illegal fights.

Meanwhile, in Maha Jaya (made-up Malaysia/Indonesian country), rich Chinese heiress Celina Jade is pledging her fortune to develop police infrastructure in her adopted country. This makes her a target of Maha Jayan crime. (Haven't we seen this setup before, maybe with Jackie Chan?) When her car is attacked, she runs to a police station, where she can't communicate - the police speak Bahasa, she speaks Chinese. So they get Tiger Chen to translate. Then Adkins, White and gang show up to get rid of Tiger and Jaa. 

And it's a big fight. When the dust settles, the bad guys have got Jade, and Chen and Jaa are free. Uwais tells them that he had them arrested to use them as bait. So now they are united, and need to get Jade, and their own revenge. 

It's fun to see Uwais, Jaa and Chen, all fighting in their personal styles. Adkins and White make decent villains, although maybe their fighting skills and styles could have been better used. They were sort of generic heavyweights. In fact, a lot of this movie was sort of generic. Not a complaint, really, I enjoyed this. But with that much talent, I might have set my expectation too high.