Triple 9 Review

Natural Born Robbers

Released : February 19th 2016

Certificate : 15

Director : John Hillcoat

Cast : Kate Winslet, Aaron Paul, Norman Reedus, Casey Affleck, Woody Harrelson, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Anthony Mackie

Plot : A ex military crew paired with some dirty cops pull a bank robbery to gain information from a security box for the Russian mob. Forced into another job after payments withheld by the mob, the crew lead by Michael Atwood (Ejiofor) must figure out a way to rob a highly secure federal building. The crew relaises that they need a distraction, and decide on a triple 9, police code for killing a cop.

John Hillcoat returns after making moderate success with Lawless, another violent and big cast fuelled crime film. Now he takes on modern crime with one of the best cast assembles this year (due to early release) in the thriller genre, with a cat and mouse cops and robbers film about betrayal, desperateness and neighbourhood violence. Hillcoat general vibe set after Lawless was that he was a big fan of the blood and guts and had the ability to develop solid character drama to make an entertaining enough thriller, but many reviewers found that there was something holding it back narrative wise, a slight lack of originality that kept it in the realms of seen before violent cops and robber’s thrillers. Triple 9 script has some similarities to Lawless with the robbers having a strong team dynamic, but now we have goodies on the robber’s side to and a heightened dealing with morality within the story. But does Triple 9 have the suspense, thrills and acting quality able to make another modern robber squad thriller stand out alike The Town in recent years. Acting talent is certainly present within the film and the trailer alone boasted large scale uses of the city (no quiet at Heat level) there is promise.

Firstly, the films story will be one that was bound to come under fire from highbrow critics due to obvious decisions within the narrative. There are cheap shots that can be made at obvious features, such as the racial profiling that occurs in the film, with great amount of crime and hatred for the police residing within the Mexicans depicted in the film. There is the lack of female representation that is of a positive light, either sexualised or negative characters. But more than many others are the teasing nature of which it deals with the violence in the film, having clear reference to violence and crimes effect on a bigger scale than just the cops and robbers. For example, there is the child and his uncle (Harrelson) playing with a toy gun, and the brief scene showing parallel action between the Russian mob mother and child reading a book and the police mother and child reading together, while the father prepares his gun for work out of sight of the child. This final point teases the idea that the film will address the violence occurring in a profound or conclusive way, but the film never does, and in the minds of many critics this means it can’t justify its use.

Directorial work from Hillcoat had one opening issue, the film opens with a big bank robbery which is polluted by the presence of some credits on screen, distracting from a poignant bit of thrilling, reduced from the moment. From an overview of Hillcoat’s work it is much like the writing of the film, as in it doesn’t give you much extra in the way of poignant shoot choice or particular inventiveness, but this doesn’t mean that his work doesn’t function. The majority of the film could fit into this pattern of giving you high quality rehash of past crime thrillers conventions, with little added to it to make it more memorable, but that doesn’t make it thrilling while it last, simple doesn’t get it into any halls of fame. Following this line of argument Hillcoat does prove himself as before capable to use a combination of brutal violence and tense construct to keep you enthralled in the scenes. The actions sequences are more frequent and better constructed than in his previous work, as he deals with a script dealing with less character driven drama. The ending act, as it should be in a film of this type is particularly well built together for genuine adrenalin.

For the performances to build the film, there is a diversity in quality of talent. Winslet plays a rather two dimensional villains, but perhaps the dialogue of a Russian mobster didn’t have the design of character development. Paul plays as always with great conviction and realism, unfortunately there are striking similarities between this role and his most famous. The same to an extent can be said for Harrelson role, and while such a character with charisma and sarcasm may not be taken overly seriously, it still is achieved with great talent, with one of the most captivating performances of the film. Ejiofor being to many the heavy weight on the set still having the aura of 12 Years a Slave lingering about him, in this less serious role he plays the head of the robber gang, much alike its disciplining father, who also happens to be desperately attempting to claim a life back with his own son from the Russian mob. Unfortunately, he doesn’t spread his wings as much as his best work, nor is he expected to for this type of film, with a driven more by the interaction of the characters than any specific set piece of acting, which the actors achieve to keeping the films world believable and engaging, rather than create memorable performances.

The standards of Hillcoat second outing as a director create a film with standards to matching quality of his first outing, but maybe Lawless wins due to the added entertainment of period piece setting. Much of the same pros and cons come with Triple 9 as Lawless, which can be summarise into the fact that there is high quality enjoyment here, but to pack such a big cast into a famous genre there is always the hope that a new classic will be born. Let it not be forgotten the huge amounts of skill involved to create a new gem within an old genre, it is not an everyday occurrence. So with Triple 9 do not expect to be blown away, but you have a skilful rehash of conventions and codes from the greats, in particular it took its inspiration from The French Connection and Heat claims Hillcoat. Well it’s definitely more Heat than French Connection, but its lacking the directorial and acting excellence to place it in the same league as its inspiration. It’s got great action, and surprisingly hooking story, adequate acting and satisfactory directing to generate a fast burner full of twists and turns and bullets, but it’s over in a flash.

Verdict : Falling just short of the over the top fun of Lawless, Triple 9 has a the same mood and ingredients. Definitely more thrilling that Hillcoats previous work, but the thrills and the mostly unpredictable character interaction does quiet pack enough punch for an as memorable experience as Lawless. Lacking in originality within story and execution, meaning people will be quick to critic its violent, political incorrect nature, unfairly so.

Verdict : 3/5

Quote : “Out monster the monster.”