“Kosher Nostra” quips Woody Harrelson’s character, Detective Sergeant Jeffrey Allen, when he learns that a major caper is afoot fueled by Russian Jewish Mafia, in John Hillcoat’s macho strutting heist pic, TRIPLE 9.
The good guy wears a cross and the bad girl wears a Star of David in a mash up that has bad cops, good cops, but the villains are just Russian Jewish scum.
The bad cops include Clifton Collins Jnr, and Andrew Mackie, in cahoots with ex military Chiwetel Ejiofor and Aaron Paul to pull off robberies on behalf of the Russians.
Ejiofor’s character is being emotionally blackmailed by Kate Winslet’s mob matriarch as he has a son with her sister, played by.
Forced to do one last job – breaking into a Homeland Security holding bay no less, they come up with a plan to kill a cop, triggering a Triple 9 code, which will focus the force on that incident and give the robbers extra time to execute their operation.
Their targeted colleague is a new cop on the beat, Chris Allen, ex Marine and nephew of Harrelson’s Jeffrey Allen.The older cop made a vow to his sister, the new cop’s mum, that he would protect him, and that vow is really the spine of the story.
Chris is a cop straight out of Serpico, and he confides to his uncle that he wants to make a difference. The cynical, reality bitten veteran chides him by telling him his job is to out monster the monster.
Casey Affleck’s Chris seems to be the only non monster in the picture, along with his wife, played by Teresa Palmer and their young son.
TRIPLE 9 is a monster movie – the antagonists operating out of a Kosher abattoir, urban streets looking like post apocalyptic avenues, even roadside signs warning of Zombies Ahead – a nod to recent hackings nationwide. As Harrelson’s cop quips “The monsters have gone digital.” Read TRIPLE 9 as an inversion of 666.
It’s been a while since John Hillcoat embarked on a feature without actor Guy Pearce or writer Nick Cave. His scribe on TRIPLE 9 is Matt Cook, a first time scenarist who has cooked up a confused plot of moral rot. It’s a story that is interesting but needs more time to breathe. The film’s second half is a lot better than its first, but the pay off is still rendered low boil.
The fun is watching big haired Kate Winslet and no haired Woody Harrelson chewing up the scenery while the others tear it up with gun blasts and bombs.
Not as accomplished as THE DEPARTED if you want to invoke crooked cop capers or HEAT if you want to go the master gang route.
Kate is dressed by Margot Wilson, who dressed her for THE DRESSMAKER, and is, serendipitously, Hillcoat’s costumer of choice, having dressed his last three pictures.
Indeed, Kate’s character is not all that far removed from The Dressmaker, both with an eye for haute couture and a revenge streak going.
Shot on the streets of Atlanta, Georgia, TRIPLE 9, at least it gives us a reprieve from the streets of San Francisco or the Big Apple