Triple 9

Triple 9 (2016)

55% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 127 reviews)

Runtime: 115 minutes

Directed by: John Hillcoat

Starring: Many famous faces, but I'll mention Casey Affleck, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Anthony Mackie, Clifton Collins, Jr. and Kate Winslet

From: Open Road

Here's a movie I saw last night, despite it not getting great reviews. I watched it in the Tampa area at a Muvico, as I hadn't been in that area for months and my last visit to a Muvico was years ago. It was a nice-enough place and this film is fine, although it's not great. I talk about it in my Letterboxd review below:

I don't know how other people feel but for me, lowered expectations do have an impact on how I feel about a movie. I think that this is an example of that. I do not remember when I first heard about this motion picture; I just know that once I heard about the plot, the director (the only other film of his I have seen is Lawless, which I will watch again in the future so I can give it a proper review on this site, but I did enjoy that) and the great cast... it seemed like a winning formula. Well, once it came out, the reviews proclaiming it a disappointment poured in, and many said it was below average. I was surprised to hear that it wasn't great, but I still wanted to see for myself, so that is what I did last night. Turns out, I was the only person at the screening, but I was fine with it; it's not like I was seeing a comedy where other people laughing would help, or a horror film where people's shrieks would be a benefit.

The plot isn't too complex: some bad cops/ex-cops perform robberies. We see them acquire something important at a bank for Russian Jew mob boss (an inspired turn by Kate Winslet); well, she wants them to do one last job as it would really help them out, but despite the large amount of cash, it requires breaking into a Homeland Security Building. They come up with a plan; I know it's a spoiler but as it's right in the title, a 999 in police code means that an officer is down. There are plenty of bad people we get to follow, but at least there's Casey Affleck as a good cop and his uncle is the very eccentric detective played by Woody Harrelson; the cast is great but Woody and that character Jeffrey Allen are the most memorable to me.

I do agree that there are some script and plot issues; I won't spoil them here for those that still want to see this motion picture; I just wanted to acknowledge they were there. Also, the characters were on the one-dimensional side. Yet, I still found this to be entertaining-enough. Like I said it has a great cast; as I mentioned in my review for The Martian it's always nice to see Chitwetel Ejiofor get a big role, and the other people do nicely with their roles, even if some of them get short-shrifted. I wouldn't have minded seeing more of Gal Gadot, personally... I was still always interested in the story and while most of the characters aren't good people, at least they weren't insufferable p***** and loathsome f**** like everyone was in the other recent movie set in Atlanta about bad law enforcement known as Sabotage. There are some quality action sequences and the electronic score from Atticus Ross and friends is pretty damn awesome.

I've debated in my own head since late last night how to rate this movie. I guess I'll say that it's fine so 3 stars it is. It has enough cool elements to where I can say it's better than average, but its issues can't make me rate it higher than that, and while I am not upset it wasn't better, I wish it would have been considering all the talent involved. I should probably also watch the better films that this apparently ripped off.