Triple 9 (2016)

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Leisher
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Triple 9 (2016)

Post by Leisher »

Currently on Netflix

Some dirty Atlanta cops and their special ops friends are stuck doing jobs for the Russian mob.

An all star cast of Woody Harrelson, Casey Affleck, Anthony Mackie, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Gal Gadot, Kate Winslet, Norman Reedus, Clifton Collins Jr., and Aaron Paul, so the acting is off the charts exceptional. Seriously, nothing bad can be said about any of the performances.

I also really liked the job director John Hillcoat did. He did a great job of putting the camera in the appropriate places to convey exactly what was happening. For a movie with this many moving pieces, that is a lot harder than you think. The raid sequence alone was really well done.

However, the script is kind of a mess. It tries really, really hard to be stylish like other big ensemble pieces, but there are a lot of flaws. Spoiler-ish statements to follow:
-Someone throws a plastic bag over your head (oddly the third movie in a row I've watched that had this tactic), you don't start gasping for air immediately. Also, when your hands are free, you have to be a real fucking idiot to not simply tear a hole in the thin plastic shopping bag...
-You know what crime organizations don't do to crews that successfully pull off a heist, and whom they now want to pull another? Randomly kill one of their members, particularly one of the highly skilled ones. So why would they do it? Well, he was the only expendable one in the plot as the rest all have a specific function. Point being, the writer, Matt Cook, wanted to add some tension, so he added this kill despite it making zero sense.
-Mackie and Affleck's story line is predictable and way too easily figured out by any detective. It's the weakest part of the entire plot and something done smarter in Bad Boys.
-The raid scene was brilliantly shot, but how it all broke down was bullshit. Half the force is there, including multiple helicopters, but a foot pursuit ends like that? No way.
-The second heist was just garbage. Essentially a smash and grab on a DHS facility that had a SWAT team, but only 5 rent a cops? FYI, that "example" was a fatal wound, which is pretty odd for a crew trying not to hurt anyone. Why didn't they just do what they did to the bank manager?
-So, so many fucked up police procedural complaints...

That all being said, it was an entertaining movie. Off the charts acting, good direction, stylized enough, and so on. It's a good film, but not the great one they were going for. This isn't The Town or Oceans 11.
“Every record been destroyed or falsified, books rewritten, pictures repainted, statues, street building renamed, every date altered. The process is continuing day by day. History stops. Nothing exists except endless present in which the Party is right.”
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