Ohhhh yeah. This is the stuff I like. A gritty, double-crossing, hard-boiled action flick with some beefy consequences. I don’t care if it doesn’t have a larger message or come with great intent to redefine the genre, just give me attention to the details and a commitment to the world it creates. That’s all I ask. And that’s director John Hillcoat‘s 2016 thriller Triple 9 in a nutshell, a brash, bold, flashy action movie with a singular vision – deliver the goods, end of story.
It centers on a small crew of nasties, including corrupt cops Marcus Belmont (Anthony Mackie) and Franco Rodriguez (Clifton Collins Jr.), Navy SEALs Russell Welch (Norman Reedus) and Michael Atwood (Chiwetel Ejiofor), and Russell’s ex-cop brother Gabe (Aaron Paul). They rob a bank for a safe deposit box containing some hot intel on a mob boss that could get him out of some serious jail time. However, when they drop it off to the boss’s wife Irina Vlaslov (Kate Winslet), a nasty piece of baddassery herself, she wants more (no duh), and forces leader Atwood to take on another, more dangerous job. How does she convince him? That’s easy. Two ways. One, her sister Elena (Gal Gadot) is the mother of Michael’s young son, who Irina keeps custody of. And two, she straight up murders one of Michael’s crew as a kind of, “this is you if ya don’t do it” kind of thing. Both work.
The new job requires them to bust into a Department of Homeland Security building and steal even more evidence for Irina’s husband, which, suffice to say, ain’t gonna be easy. They decide the only way to pull it off is to go big and to do that, they agree on a ‘Triple 9’ scenario, where they must shoot a cop to lure all the local authorities to one location, thus, keeping them busy. And they have a perfect candidate to shoot! It’s Marcus’s new partner Chris Allen (Casey Affleck), a former Marine just transferred to the precinct and all gung-ho about being a good cop and stuff. He’s perfect! So … what’s the word? Shootable.
There’s a few other characters mixed up in all this, including Chris’ uncle Jeffrey (Woody Harrelson), a detective who’s just about seen it all and Chris’s wife Michelle (Teresa Palmer), sort of kept to the backburner. Either way, the heart of the plot is how Chris proves himself a tough but worthy good guy that slowly convinces Marcus, who’s maybe not always onboard with his nest of cronies.
Well-directed and cast with some very fine performances, Affleck is thoroughly convincing and Mackie does great work as a man conflicted at every turn. Ejiofor provides a lot of depth to a guy on the wrong side of the law messed up by his unfortunate involvement with a crime boss and his wife who just don’t have a shred of kindness between them (I guess that’s why their bad). Gadot is barely in the film and remains blink and you’ll miss her, but Harrelson is terrific as a cop worn to a blunt edge struggling with a city he can’t keep safe. Yes, there’s some weak spots here and the story is sort of goofy in its motivations, but it’s not really about the heists at all, instead rather the darkness that saturates these people on all sides of it. Is it great? No, but really satisfying on a rainy rent-a-movie-weekend.
So, I want to write about a particularly strong sequence near the middle where Chris and Marcus are part of a police raid of a gang member (Carlos Aviles) suspected in connection with some gruesome beheadings (this is not a light movie). A host of a cops in lightweight tactical gear and armed to the teeth roll up on this densely population Atlanta neighborhood and file out weapons drawn. Chris takes lead, gripping a ballistic shield and his Glock 19 pointed straight ahead, a caterpillar line of other cops tucked in tight behind him, Marcus at the tail. In they charge as gunfire soon erupts from the windows above. We’ve got a shootout.
They work their way up into the building as tenants flee, Chris barking orders to those behind to check and clear as he moves forward. More police (with helicopters) arrive and surround the building as Chris’s team snake their way through the apartment, each with one hand on the shoulder of the man in front. They find a secret passageway to a connecting apartment and follow the suspect, who continues to volley sprays of bullets at them, until they end up right back on the street on the other side in an old fashioned foot pursuit. Chris is first away and closing fast, Marcus and two others quickly joining.
They end up in a parking lot where other gang members suddenly take up the defense and fire upon the seemingly trapped cops, Chris and Marcus now side by side dodging death, though Chris relies on his team to cover his back while he keeps his eyes focused on his target, now pinned himself within the labyrinth of parked cars. The baddie empties the last clip in his MAC-11 submachine gun (he’s not foolin’ around) and tosses it out as if he’s surrendering, which draws Chris out (listen for Marcus to try and stop that) leaving him vulnerable to the pistol the bad guy has tucked in his pocket. He gets one off and lands a shot in Chris’s chest, which knocks him to the ground before running away again. Marcus, in a panic, believing Chris is down, quickly checks on him and then take after the suspect.
With the wind knocked out of him, Chris regains his bearings and slowly pursues, following a blood trail we know is from Marcus after he snagged himself on a chain-link fence. He tangles his way through a maze of brick and mortar apartments and finally comes upon Marcus in a terrifying hand-to-hand death struggle with the gang member, which after a moment, ends with a single shot. I’ll leave you to find from whom.
I love this whole bit, from the instant the cops drive up on the scene to the tight close up just before it cuts to the aftermath. This is a terrific action sequence punctuated with incredible consequence, having tremendous weight on the entire plot. What’s most affecting about all this is how balls-to-the-wall authentic it feels with the formations, tactics, and execution of the raid feeling like a training video for such a thing, not to mention the smart tension it creates as they wind their way through the complex. Yet, even with how well that is staged, it is the externality of the unstable relationship that exists between Marcus and Chris that is professionally shelved for this raid that really adds punch. It doesn’t matter what they are feeling about each other inside. Right then, they must count on each other to do their job, but more importantly, live to tell about it. And that’s made all the more impactful because we know that Marcus and his crew have already tagged Chris to be the one they shoot and kill later for their triple 9 heist. Loyalties are soon to be tested.
The scene is edited with surgical precision, with the audience always on close-up of Marcus and Chris while given measured wider views of what’s growing behind. There is a sense that this is a large police action but one that is entirely personal for two men caught in the middle of it. That’s the success of the moment, that we don’t even much care about the man being chased or really, even why, only that by a sheer twist of criminal fate, he alone will be the factor that decides much of what follows between the cops after him. It’s a great movie moment.