John Hillcoat’s bloody heist movie is elevated by a fantastic ensemble cast.
By Lucy O’Brien
Brotherhood, family and the fallibility of the alpha male: Aussie director John Hillcoat may be exploring familiar themes with his latest dirty cop movie Triple 9, but Matt Cook’s taut, macho script is a perfect fit for the director, whose trade has traditionally been in exquisite action choreography and brain-splattered gravel. Their collaboration is a thrilling, if rather superficial affair, shouldered by an excellent ensemble cast.
Set in modern Atlanta – a serviceable, but unremarkable replacement for L.A. or New York – Triple 9 focuses on a criminal group of corrupt cops and ex-special forces, under the thumb of the tyrannical Russian mafia. The breathless bank heist that opens the film marks the beginning of their descent into complete subservience, and ultimately, gripping desperation.
We want to hear it.
The job that will make or break them explains the title. ‘Triple 9’ – police officer down – is the highest-priority police code, and effectively pulls every officer in the city away from any other misdeeds that may occur. It’s a high concept that brings with it a wonderful slow burn as the group of wayward scoundrels gradually come to terms with killing one of their own.
The bad guys have the most to chew on here. For Chiwetel Ejiofor’s Terrell Tompkins, familial ties with the Russians ensure there’s more at stake than pure greed, and his anguish gives Triple 9 its center of gravity. Similarly impactful is Anthony Mackie’s performance as a slick cop whose moral compass is painfully at odds with his desire for money.
We want to hear it.
Elsewhere in this large ensemble, Norman Reedus and Aaron Paul have fun playing a pair of on-the-edge brothers, and Clifton Collins Jr. is all dead eyes and coiled energy as a detective who “doesn’t have a problem taking out a cop.” On the Russian side, Gal Gadot certainly looks the part as a moll (though her near-silence in the film relegates her to male accessory), while Kate Winslet does a predictably admirable job as ringleader, although her big-haired ice-queen borders on caricature.
Still, she’s not quite as one-note as Triple 9’s ‘good guys’, who unfortunately glide out of the movie in the same shape they entered it. Casey Affleck brings warmth to detective Chris Allen, but we’ve seen this obsessed-with-the-job straight arrow before. Woody Harrelson, in the meantime, is playing a half-sketched version of True Detective’s Marty Hart, and any shades of grey in his character are ultimately left unexplored by Triple 9’s coda.
We want to hear it.
Triple 9 may only flirt with its heroes, then, but it commits wholesale to its brutal action. The film’s bookended heists are meticulously shot and gloriously bloody, and a great sense of escalating hysteria is born from Hillcoat’s dark, dreary colour palette, which shrouds some of its most shocking moments. This is rough, grunty stuff that treads a great line between pulp and half-glimpsed authenticity.
While Triple 9 may lack the substance it needed to be a great film, its action is executed with enough flair and its cast has enough raw charm to make it a very good one. Hillcoat continues to explore his favourite themes in the most riotous ways possible.
