D+Directed by John Hillcoat Starring Casey Affleck, Anthony Mackie, and Kate Winselt Review by Jon Kissel |  |
John Hillcoat has several feathers in his cap, particularly his two bleak masterpieces (The Proposition, The Road) and his rambunctious Prohibition tall tale (Lawless). That's a track record to recommend, but it all comes to a halt with Triple 9, Hillcoat's stultifying attempt to make a modern Heat. His earlier films never get anywhere near boring, but his latest is stuck in the quicksand of uninteresting characters and genre rehashes. Hillcoat has assembled an A-list cast to reprise tropes that were either created or better utilized in far superior films.
Set and filmed in Atlanta, Triple 9 weaves a complicated web that doesn't see fit to introduce ostensible leads until a big chunk of the film has elapsed. A team of bank robbers led by Chiwetel Ejiofor are being extorted by Russian Jewish mob boss Kate Winslet. On Ejiofor's team (which also includes brothers Norman Reedus and Aaron Paul) are a couple of crooked cops in Anthony Mackie and Clifton Collins, Jr. Casey Affleck is the partner to Mackie during his day job, and Woody Harrelson is the detective uncle of Affleck, who is investigating Ejiofor's heists. This ouroboros of a plot eventually constricts around Mackie's and Affleck's partnership. To fulfill Irina's final request, the heist team plans a distraction using the titular police code, a cop shooting, thus pulling all of Atlanta's police to a single location while they rob an office elsewhere. The green Affleck is offered up as the potential sacrificial lamb, with Mackie turning the spit.
The labyrinthine plot of Triple 9 has potential for layers of conflicted interests and cross purposes, but enacting all these machinations are types that even actors of this caliber are unable to elevate. Affleck's an idealistic novice, Harrelson's a grizzled and jaded but competent cynic, and Paul plays an unstable junkie. Winslet's comical accent makes her otherwise poised and deadly matriarch a joke, and Ejiofor will do anything for the son that is being held hostage in Winslet's gilded cage. Collins, Jr. is a garden variety psychopath, and Reedus is no-nonsense. Each is given that one thing except for Mackie, who gets the most but the film never does much with his dilemma beyond what's expected. All are hampered by leaden exposition that rips the viewer out of the film. First-time screenwriter Matt Cook, who wrote two other 2016 releases, isn't putting a 'watch my scripts' sticker by his name based on how he informs the viewer that Reedus and Paul are brothers by having the former address the latter as 'little brother,' like all siblings do everywhere.
Hillcoat might not be starting from a great script, but that doesn't keep him from being wildly inconsistent with the action onscreen. Some scenes, like an intro heist and a residential shoot-out, resonate with the urgency and intensity that his earlier work has been characterized by. Others are badly edited, with distracting cutaways to distant locations and characters in the midst of climactic events. Pivotal moments flash by in confused fashion, something that could be a thematic point about anti-climax or the sudden randomness of violence but for the viewer, only serve to furrow brows and wonder at what just happened instead of staying present in the characters' heads.
Triple 9 is a frustrating mess that will be buried alongside other forgettable crime dramas like A Man Apart or Street Kings, but Hillcoat surely can and will recover. If Tom McCarthy can come back from the dreadful Cobbler with the near-perfect Spotlight in the same year, I have faith that Hillcoat will be back at the helm plumbing the depths of the soul in no time. D+
The labyrinthine plot of Triple 9 has potential for layers of conflicted interests and cross purposes, but enacting all these machinations are types that even actors of this caliber are unable to elevate. Affleck's an idealistic novice, Harrelson's a grizzled and jaded but competent cynic, and Paul plays an unstable junkie. Winslet's comical accent makes her otherwise poised and deadly matriarch a joke, and Ejiofor will do anything for the son that is being held hostage in Winslet's gilded cage. Collins, Jr. is a garden variety psychopath, and Reedus is no-nonsense. Each is given that one thing except for Mackie, who gets the most but the film never does much with his dilemma beyond what's expected. All are hampered by leaden exposition that rips the viewer out of the film. First-time screenwriter Matt Cook, who wrote two other 2016 releases, isn't putting a 'watch my scripts' sticker by his name based on how he informs the viewer that Reedus and Paul are brothers by having the former address the latter as 'little brother,' like all siblings do everywhere.
Hillcoat might not be starting from a great script, but that doesn't keep him from being wildly inconsistent with the action onscreen. Some scenes, like an intro heist and a residential shoot-out, resonate with the urgency and intensity that his earlier work has been characterized by. Others are badly edited, with distracting cutaways to distant locations and characters in the midst of climactic events. Pivotal moments flash by in confused fashion, something that could be a thematic point about anti-climax or the sudden randomness of violence but for the viewer, only serve to furrow brows and wonder at what just happened instead of staying present in the characters' heads.
Triple 9 is a frustrating mess that will be buried alongside other forgettable crime dramas like A Man Apart or Street Kings, but Hillcoat surely can and will recover. If Tom McCarthy can come back from the dreadful Cobbler with the near-perfect Spotlight in the same year, I have faith that Hillcoat will be back at the helm plumbing the depths of the soul in no time. D+
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