Knee Deep and Surely Drowning
February 29, 2016
Triple 9 (2016).
D: John Hillcoat. DP: Nicolas Karakatsanis. W: Matt Cook. Starring: Chiwetel Ejiofor/Casey Affleck/Woody Harrelson/Anthony Mackie/Aaron Paul/Norman Reedus/Kate Winslet/Gal Gadot/Clifton Collins Jr./Teresa Palmer/Michelle Ang.
The award season frenzy still has many enraptured, but in the meantime movies are still being released! Among those is a new film, Triple 9, from director John Hillcoat about a strategic group of military con men and dirty cops who rob a bank only to be forced to do a follow up job. None other than Oscar winner Kate Winslet steps up to that plate in Russian accented stilettos. But she is better in Triple 9 than a single frame of Steve Jobs.
Hillcoat’s last film, 2012’s Lawless, was a favorite of mine. Its development struggle with this one was similar, it came together and fell apart multiple times. But unlike Lawless (as well as Hillcoat’s The Road and The Proposition) Triple 9 is not a bleak frontier set story. Its urban sweaty Atlanta landscape surely feels alive, but its core group of men are so selfish you hardly want to root for them. Hillcoat gets the setting right, but can never really pull you into a tale probably better suited to crime fiction.
The vagabond group is led by Chiwetel Ejiofor as Michael whose child with Irina’s (Winslet) sister Elena (new Wonder Woman Gal Gadot) is the wretch in everyone’s plan. Michael gets his group together of fellow military man Russell (Norman Reedus) and dirty detectives Marcus (Anthony Mackie) and Franco (Clifton Collins Jr.). Russell’s former cop brother Gabe (Aaron Paul) tags along and nearly botches the first job. The group is forced to proceed with the second job and concoct the Triple 9 plan, as 999 stands for the code for a police officer down. With the city responding to that crisis for ten to fifteen minutes the other robbery can occur.
New gang unit cop Chris (Casey Affleck) becomes their target as he is partnered up with Marcus. Affleck’s Chris and Mackie’s Marcus may have competing concepts of their job, but a sequence where Chris leads the gang unit into a project after a suspect is gripping and the best part of the film. Triple 9 is able to show the different objectives of departments like homicide and gang units and how each group has its own ecosystem tenderly balanced. Circling around the group is Woody Harrelson as Chris’ uncle Jeff, also a detective, who smells something isn’t right early on. Looking like he walked from his True Detective set onto this one, Jeff is nothing we wouldn’t expect from Harrelson, grass included.
Every actor does well here, each man stands their own with Ejiofer playing his paternal role well. Winslet’s accent is even and it’s a bit fun to see her play dirty. Yet ultimately the film cannot compete with say a good read of a Dennis Lehane novel. One needs a character you know well when all the violence, betrayals and deaths rain down. Without it you are left walking out the cinema asking, who cares? We have to root for someone knee deep in all that crap! That is what Sicario did earlier this year and what I wish Triple 9 could have done.
Not Another Hitman
October 17, 2015
Sicario (2015).
D: Denis Villeneuve. DP: Roger Deakins. W: Taylor Sheridan. Starring: Emily Blunt/Josh Brolin/Benicio Del Toro/Victor Garber/Jon Bernthal/Daniel Kaluuya/Jeffrey Donovan/Maximiliano Hernández.
As London Film Festival comes to a close this weekend there is still plenty to see out in theaters. Sicario is the next installment in movies about the Mexican/American border cartel crisis, but it’s not what it seems. Rather it follows FBI kidnapping crisis leader Kate Macer (Emily Blunt) as she’s roped into a border crossing mission that has her out of the loop and into the line of fire.
Veteran cinematographer Roger Deakins whose responsible for so many favorites (Shawshank Redemption, Fargo, A Beautiful Mind, Skyfall) is in full command here. Aerial shots and thermal cameras work with long shots to create an aura of surveillance and threat. Yet the character connections are not lost on camera either. Deakins pulls us into Kate’s world, but never relies on extreme close ups to deliver the punch.
Working for the second time together, Deakins and Canadian director Denis Villeneuve are slated to work on the Blade Runner reboot. Villeneuve’s mind cringing film Enemy might make you say WHAT? when it’s over, but it’s better handled than his child snatching who-dun-it Prisoners. Clear in both of these film, as well as Sicario, is good acting. No one in Sicario plays anything over the top, rather disgust and confusion help build suspense. Suspense that is fantastically illuminated by Jóhann Jóhhannsson’s score. He won a Golden Globe last year for scoring The Theory of Everything, but this time the score reverberates through the seats building the most beautiful dread.
Blunt straps on Kate’s glock quite well, she is believable as an FBI buster but with less guts than her role in Edge of Tomorrow. Blunt’s relate-ability doesn’t come across as ordinariness rather she is everyone and herself at the same time. In other words, she is able to encourage the audience to root for her and identify with her, but never loses her singularity. Benicio Del Toro’s sexy-weird-creepy-silent Alejandro grounds the film’s nebulousness giving the violence a grim reaper sheen to it. Daniel Kaluuya is nice as her partner and Jon Bernthal’s small role is well crafted.
Sicario feels fresh because it’s a hitman movie not about the hitman. There are small flaws in the scripts, a few cheats and tricks that you can see coming. In line with the feminism in Hollywood hot topic debate of late it is nice to see a female led action film that brings depth, Blunt continues to make good choices. Overall it’s a solid film built around character rather than action, we shall see what this duo can do with Blade Runner.