‘Triple 9’ Review

What happens when an A-list cast winds up with C-minus material? You get something along the lines of Triple 9, a movie that would feel more comfortable in a Redbox machine rather than in the formidable hands of director John Hillcoat (Lawless, The Road). An adult crime drama with grit-and-grime to spare, but lacking severely in originality department, it’s by no means the worst. It’s hard to imagine a film starring a dynamite roaster of Casey Affleck, Aaron Paul, Anthony Mackie, Kate Winslet, Woody Harrelson, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Clifton Collins Jr. — to name just a handful — ending up completely unsavory. But throughout it all, there’s a nagging sense they could all be doing better, that they are only utilizing some of their potential. And this is a feeling that drags from the first forgettable scene until the very last.

By way of The Departed or The Town, Hillcoat’s latest ropes us into the high-crimes of a band of crooks in the dirtiest sectors of Atlanta, GA. Lead by Michael Atwood (Ejiofor), these guys have worked their system to a science. During a bank robbery, they cover themselves head-to-toe in dark ski masks, sunglasses and other assorted black items to make their appearance completely undetectable. They speak Spanish in the process to make the cops trace their tracks to the Spanish drug cartel. They plan their executions to-the-dot, assuring themselves no second is wasted. And though their latest heist doesn’t necessarily go according to plan, they get the job done — and that job comes at the hands of Irina Vlaslov (Winslet), Michael’s boss and the wife of a locked-behind-bars Jewish gangster in a Russian prison.

These criminals give the safety deposit box they were asked to retrieve her, hoping to receive the small fortune they were supposed to be given in return. But of course, there’s a catch: For she holds onto the payment until the men perform another job on her behalf — one that’ll get her husband out of his cell, she hopes. Michael wants to refuse, but he’s got his hands tied. That’s because he’s got family ties in their bloodline thanks to a son, Felix (Blake McLennan), he shares with Irina’s less-intelligent-but-very-beautiful younger sister Elena (future Wonder Woman Gal Gadot). When Irina refuses to let Michael have shared custody of his son unless he performs this last job, he begrudgingly accepts.

But there are more layers to the puzzle, of course. For two of the men in the brigade, Marcus Belmont (Mackie) and Franco Rodriguez (Collins Jr.), serve double time as cops. And now working beside Marcus is a loyal-to-a-fault newbie Chris Allen (Affleck), the kind of law-protector that actually wants to make a difference. How sweet. In the midst of figuring out their next move, things go awry when their driver (The Walking Dead’s Norman Reedus) winds up dead, much to the dismay of his hopped-up younger brother/fellow crew member Gabe (Paul). As they scramble to figure out how to pull of their next heist, they decide to stage a “999” — the code for a cop killing. They hope to get Chris, the nephew of Detective Jeffrey Allen (Harrelson), down-for-the-count, forcing every acting member of the fuzz to the scene of such a crime while they perform the biggest crime of their careers, under their noses, on the adjacent part of town.

But things get complicated, you bet, when Chris and Marcus get close, and Irina remains untruthful to her word, and Detective Allen begins to catch wind of their plans, and Gabe gets dangerously close to putting the whole operation to shit. And the heavy drama keeps coming and coming and coming.

Throughout it all, you can’t help but feel as though you’ve seen all this before —and done so much better. Matt Cook’s screenplay often plays like a greatest hits from the heavy-handed dramas of the late’80s-mid ‘90s, the kind of films that wouldn’t be uncommon on Michael Mann’s filmography. All the clichés are there, from the dirty cops to the last score. And though the cast does an admirable job revitalizing them, and Hillcoat pays close attention to make the grungy slums of Atlanta become a character in-and-of themselves, there’s not enough meat here to chew, or creative spark to gleam.

From The Proposition to Lawless, Hillcoat’s movies usually always looking at the larger picture in the life of crime. And though he gives hints of commentary on the aftermath of the Iraq war and how our surroundings ultimately affect our character, Triple 9 lacks a greater message. Sure, Hillcoat captures an appropriately merciless, ruthlessly violent world here as he always does, but one that lacks a clear pulse or a real edge. Nothing about these proceedings are especially shocking, and without the service of a stronger narrative, they sometimes come across as needlessly excessive. And worse of all, it becomes something I never thought I’d ever consider a Hillcoat picture in the past: predictable. When he comes at the service of a sub-par screenplay, however, such is the case.

As far as the cast themselves go, only Affleck ever truly stands out. Bulked up and given a moral complexity that feels rooted deep in reality, much like he did in The Finest Hours last month, he gives a weight and an honesty to his character that was severely lacking before. As far as everyone else, however, they’re basically going through the motions. Harrelson’s drunken, intensely loud-mouth detective is the kind of role he can pretty much do in his sleep at this point. Winslet struggles mightily to make her hard-pressed Russian accent come across as natural. Paul’s greatest challenge is acting alongside a downright awful dingy frohawk on his head, especially as he fits inside the kind of role I feared he would often get typecast in outside his days of Breaking Bad. Mackie and Collins Jr. are fine, but only rarely get much to work with — much like Teresa Palmer as Chris’ forever-accepting wife, Michelle. And Ejiofor is also pretty good, but beyond his family commitments, you never really get a true sense of Michael’s character.

And as Triple 9 goes along, it does admittedly get a little better. The middle act promises a better movie that doesn’t come through, but the last act is at least better than the first. All-in-all, though, this is just a mid-level effort from an exceptional roaster of talent, one who could almost certainly do something much better in each other’s presence if given the material to back each other up. As such, this is largely direct-to-DVD material prompted up by an Oscar-caliber cast, resulting in a film that also becomes something I never thought I would call a Hillcoat feature: forgettable, at best.

Rating: C

‘Breaking Bad’ Episode Review: ‘Buried’

By Will Ashton

Spoilers for Breaking Bad, obviously. Also, sorry for the delay.

Last week’s episode opening say the downfall spiral of Heisenberg going even farther . This week, however, we’re getting a look at Jessie’s.

We begin the episode from the viewpoint of a man we’ve never seen before, not uncommon for Breaking Bad to do. We see an older gentleman enjoying the night breeze on his porch before heading out to his truck. But before he does this, he notices something: a wad of money laying before him. Not long after this, he begins to see a trail of money before him, which leads him to something we don’t directly see at first.

Jessie’s car has been crashed into a local playground set, and Jessie is not even fazed by it, it seems. He is spinning around and around on the playground set, setting the mood perfectly for what he has been feeling these past couple episodes.

It’s not long after that that we return to the heated scene between Hank and Walt, where we left off last week with Walt warning his brother-in-law to “tread lightly.” Walt gets back in his car, but not before he and Hank spend a little bit of bit paying homage to classic westerns. Not only after he gets in his car does he stop to call his wife to let her in on his discovery. But it turns out that that Hank had a similar idea, and decides to call his sister-in-law to meet and discuss the situation.

When Hank meets with Skylar, he reveals a little more to Skylar about what’s at stake and what could be happening throughout the next couple months, but not before telling her that Walt is “a monster.” But in meeting, he learns that perhaps the Heisenberg is a little closer to the family tree than he originally considered. He also spills the beans on Walt’s returning cancer to Skylar.

He sends his wife, Skylar’s sister, into the house to gain some information shortly after. This is, however, when she learns that Skylar has known for quite some time that Walt has been in the empire business. Before she tired to kill herself, before Gus, even before Hank was shot. In a fit of rage, Marie attempts to take her baby niece Holly away from this family, which throws Skylar in a fit of rage that Marie has only seen in the past couple months. It is then that Skylar joins Hank in the car and tells him that they need to be taken down.

It was only two episodes ago, but it feels so long ago from the time the whole family was siting together by the pool, laughing, drinking and enjoying themselves. Now Walt is debating with Saul Goodman whether or not he should be killed as Hank determines the best course of action in taking his brother-in-law down.

Meanwhile, Walt is back in the desert again, but this time, instead of cooking meth, he’s burying and hiding all the money that he’s made cooking meth these past couple months. But it’s not hard to see that, because of Walt’s returning cancer, that the hard day’s sun and the lack of water play a big toll on his health. When he finally returns to his concerned wife, Walt passes out before he can even hit the shower. As he awakes several hours later, he finds his wife unusually aiding him by his side as he talks to her and becomes a bit more honest than unusual these past few months. She reveals to Walt that she knows that his cancer is back, but, more importantly, when Walt considers giving up his Heisenberg identity, Skylar does a bit of role switching and suggest that, maybe he better keep it low.

Meanwhile, Hank is in his continued state of turmoil, but, when talking to his wife, tells her about one important note. The day that he confesses to the D.E.A. that Walt is Heisenberg will be the last day of his career, as the idea that his identity has been under his nose this whole time is too much to let go.

When Hank returns to work, however, he finds an unexpected guest: Jessie, who looks like hell at this point. As he enters the room to see him, we are left waiting, once again, until next week to find out what’s going to happen.

We also see Lydia again, along with Todd and find out what has been going on in the meth making business since Walt has left. Also, some dead bodies get involved in the process.

The biggest takeaways that I got from this episode are these: one, these episodes, if there were any doubt, are just going to be as good as ever if they can keep up the pace. They don’t have time to fool around, and every scene has a purpose to it. Also, I’m predicting it now, Dean Norris is going to be nominated for an Emmy as Best Supporting Actor next year. Just like Aaron Paul, Jonathan Banks and Giancarlo Esposito before him, when he is finally able to get some more screen time, he has been able to completely dominate it. Hopefully, he’ll be able to keep it up these next six episodes.