Premise: Corrupt LA cops. One last job. Criminal underworld. You know the drill.
I have a pretty massive spreadsheet that I use to track all the movies I've seen and want to see. The unseen movies list is pretty massive - over 3000 at the moment. It's compiled from a bunch of sources - assorted "best movie" lists, podcast recommendations, personal recommendations, box office, cast, director, genre. It's all labelled thoroughly, because I'm not going to remember what each of these movies are and why I want to see them. One of the more recent updates I made was going through each movie and picking out which cast members intrigue me. As a result of this, I have a new sublist of movies that I'm calling "OMG, this cast!" Movies. These are movies that, regardless of RottenTomatoes score, I have to see simply because of how many great actors are in it. That's why I recently watched State of Play finally. And it is definitely why I watched Triple 9 now.
For a pretty anonymous crime movie, this cast is nuts. There are Oscar winners (Casey Affleck, Kate Winslet), Oscar nominees (Chiwetel Ejiofor, Woody Harrelson), Emmy winners/nominees (Aaron Paul, Michael Kenneth Williams), and superheroes (Gal Gadot, Anthony Mackie). And that doesn't even get to Norman Reedus, Clifton Collins Jr., or Theresa Palmer who have led their own major movies. This is a 2016 movie, so only Gal Gadot was cast before she was big deal. I'm not sure how they convinced this many names to be in a movie directed by the guy behind Lawless and The Road. That's not even a dig at director John Hillcoat. This is just a Tarantino or Scorsese cast.
Unsurprisingly, Triple 9 is a forgettable (but not bad) crime drama made very watchable by the cast. It's got a lot of the actors going into their B-mode*. It's not that they are doing nothing. They're just settled back into familiar roles. Aaron Paul is a twitchy criminal. Chiwetel Ejiofor is good man who's been forced to do bad things. Woody Harrelson is an ornery cop who breaks as many rules as he follows. Anthony Mackie is a little cocky. Casey Affleck is a little earnest. Even Michael Kenneth Williams as a cross-dressing pimp police informant somehow feels like "oh, this again?". They are all playing familiar shades of stuff they already know they can do. Only Kate Winslet, as a Russian Jewish crime lord, is really taking a swing. And, I suspect she took this role because she wanted to be a little weird. Or maybe she was just having trouble dropping that accent from Steve Jobs the year before. Regardless, it's the one bit of color in the movie that made me pause and pay attention. This came out right before Gal Gadot premiered as Wonder Woman in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, so she's still treated like eye candy from Fast and Furious movies in this. It's a waste but not surprising at that point in her career. And let's face it, if you are casting a Jewish goddess, she's getting the first call.
*I realize upon re-read that people may not know this lingo. On major amusement park rides, certain effects have an A-mode when everything is working and a B-mode for when they can't get everything working right but still need something on the ride. An example is the A-mode on a ride may be an animatronic Na'vi moving around. The B-mode is just a screen showing animation of the Na'vi moving. (You could've figured this out from context, but I'm really itching to talk parks right now)
This movie delivers what it promises. It's an exciting crime movie. There are double-agents. The criminals are doing this "one last job" before they get out. It fully tracks both the legal and illegal sides of the investigation and has fun playing with who knows what part of the puzzle. There's a body count to this and it ends up being about who makes it to the end. This is definitely a "second choice movie" for if you are in a Departed or Heat mood but don't want to just rewatch those. It's not nearly as good as those movies, but it'll do the trick. I get why the movie has such mixed reviews. It's derivative and I felt no emotional attachment to the characters. There's nothing in the movie I haven't seen before. But, let's not forget that the life cycle of your average crime movie is...
Stage 1: "Just like every other crime movie."
Stage 2: "It's not good, but I caught it on TNT the other day and left it on."
Stage 3: It's actually pretty good. Why aren't the crime movies being made today this familiar and proficient?
So, I'm going to skip ahead to stage 3. I enjoyed watching a sturdy crime movie with a good cast.
Verdict: Weakly Recommend
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