Movie Review: Triple 9

Triple 9
Directed by: John Hillcoat.   
Written by: Matt Cook.
Starring: Chiwetel Ejiofor (Michael Atwood), Casey Affleck (Chris Allen), Anthony Mackie (Marcus Belmont), Woody Harrelson (Jeffrey Allen), Aaron Paul (Gabe Welch), Kate Winslet (Irina Vlaslov), Gal Gadot (Elena Vlaslov), Norman Reedus (Russell Welch), Teresa Palmer (Michelle Allen), Michael Kenneth Williams (Sweet Pea), Clifton Collins Jr. (Franco Rodriguez), Michelle Ang (Trina Ling), Terence Rosemore (Joshua Parks), Terri Abney (Leah Green), Alexander Babara (Ben Feldman), Anthony Belevtsov  (Yussel Gotlib), Luis Da Silva Jr. (Luis Pinto).

John Hillcoat is a director who makes dark, grimy, violent films where even the good guys are morally compromised. His “heroes” may not exactly be good men – but in the world of Hillcoat’s films, there are no more good men left – and the heroes are really only good by comparison to the truly vile people that surround them. Active since the 1980s, I don’t know any of his films before 2005’s The Proposition – which remains my favorite of his work, and is one of the best Westerns of the 2000s. Since then, there has been a law of diminishing returns at play with his films – 2008’s The Road, based on the Cormac McCarthy novel, was excellent – but not quite as good as The Proposition. 2012’s Lawless, but was certainly flawed, not least of which because he has no idea what to do with his female characters – who when they’re played by actresses as great as Mia Wasikowska and Jessica Chastain, is a real disappointment. Now comes Triple 9, his first contemporary film – a cops and robbers thriller that calls to mind the likes of Michael Mann, Sidney Lumet and William Friedkin – but in ways that do Triple 9 no favors. Those directors each made several great films in the same vein as Triple 9 – and you’d well advised to spend the evening watching one of those instead. Triple 9 isn’t a bad per se – it’s just that it’s an echo of much better films.

The film begins with a bang – as a five man crew take down a bank with expert efficiency, until one of them makes a rash call that almost blows the whole thing. They aren’t there for the money – they’re there for a specific safety deposit box, but Gabe (Aaron Paul) grabs a bunch of cash anyway – unaware of the dye pack, that will explode, and almost destroy their getaway. The leader of this group is Mike (Chiwetel Ejiofor), and he isn’t very happy about this – but he’s close with Gabe’s older brother, Russell (Norman Reedus) – another member of the gang. The other two members are dirty cops – Marcus (Anthony Mackie) and Franco (Clifton Collins Jr.) – who are even more pissed. From this robbery, the plot branches out in a few ways. Mike was doing to the job for Irina Vlaslov (Kate Winslet) – a Russian crime boss, who refuses to pay Mike and the team until he does yet another job for her. He cannot refuse because he has a son with Irina’s sister, Elena (Gal Gadot) – and Irina controls her and her son. Jeffrey Allen (Woody Harrelson) is the cop in charge of the investigation – he may be a good cop, but he’s also using a lot of drugs himself. Then there is his nephew Chris (Casey Affleck), who has just transferred into a new squad – where he’s partnered up with Marcus. This second job that Irina wants Mike and his crew to do is more complicated – and requires more time. The title refers to the code given when a cop is shot on duty – and Mike and his crew think that if a triple 9 call goes out, it will give them the time they need to pull off the job. And since Marcus doesn’t even know Chris, let alone like him …

This truly is one of the most talented ensemble casts you could possibly ask for. There is hardly a cast member here who isn’t capable of great work. The disappointing thing then is that, for the most part, the film doesn’t give them all that much to do. Kate Winslet at least gets to don a spectacularly over-the-top Russian accent, and seems to be having a blast doing so (and I had a blast watching her) – the rest don’t even get that. Casey Affleck is stuck in the film’s most thankless role – the one, undeniably good character – who is pretty much just hopelessly naïve, as he doesn’t have a clue what the hell is going on. Everyone else in the movie is dour and sour and morose – with the exception of Mackie and Collins, Mackie because he’s so naturally charming, and Collins, because he relishes his evil role – he’s so evil, that I don’t think for a second anyone would allow him to be a cop, but I digress. Like in Lawless, Hillcoat wastes the presence of some talented actresses – this time Gal Gadot and Teresa Palmer (the later as Affleck’s wife, whose role is to be The Wife Who Worries About Her Husband).

Hill coat has often favored dark compositions before – they go along with his themes – but his work in Triple 9 is dark even by his standards. These characters seem to hardly do anything in the daytime – and even when they do, it’s in dark tunnels or abandoned buildings with no power, so Hillcoat can make the most of the shadows. The film works best during the action sequences – when these characters, who aren’t saying much of interest anyway, and who we do not really care about – are involved in life and death struggles, in which there is ultimately no escape for anyone. It would be generous to compare the last act to something like The Big Sleep – where one character kills another, just to be killed by another a scene later, and so on, but that well could have been the inspiration.

Triple 9 is not a bad movie – not really. It’s a movie that holds your attention, and once I realized it wasn’t going to be great, and simply sat back and enjoyed its limited pleasures, it worked pretty good. However, a decade ago, I kind of expected Hillcoat to go onto become a great director – The Proposition is a legitimately great film after all. But with each passing film, that seems less and less likely. As a director, he certainly has a point of view – but it’s dark, cynical and repetitive one.

Movie Review: Lawless

Lawless
Directed by: John Hillcoat.
Written by: Nick Cave based on the book by Matt Bondurant.
Starring: Shia LaBeouf (Jack Bondurant), Tom Hardy (Forrest Bondurant), Jason Clarke (Howard Bondurant), Guy Pearce (Charlie Rakes), Jessica Chastain (Maggie Beauford), Mia Wasikowska (Bertha Minnix), Dane DeHaan (Cricket Pate), Chris McGarry (Danny), Tim Tolin (Mason Wardell), Gary Oldman (Floyd Banner), Lew Temple (Deputy Henry Abshire), Marcus Hester (Deputy Jeff Richards), Bill Camp (Sheriff Hodges), Alex Van (Tizwell Minnix), Noah Taylor (Gummy Walsh).

Lawless moves with a restless, relentless energy thanks to its inventive use of music, very good performances and the ever present threat of violence that hangs over every frame. There is not an original note in the movie – you’ve seen everything in this movie before, and probably better than here, but the film is also endlessly entertaining. This is a movie where the line between good and evil is pretty much non-existent – everyone on both sides of the law is ruthless and violent, and pretty much have the same reason why they behave this way – money. If the audience ends up cheering for the outlaws instead of the cops, it’s only because the outlaws are quite so irredeemably evil as the smirking bad cop for Chicago.

The year is 1931, and America still has prohibition. In the hills of Virginia, pretty much everyone makes moonshine – and no one really cares. They make it, and ship to speakeasies in the neighboring towns – the sheriff knows, but because he is also a customer, he lets them go about their business. The Bondurant boys are the unofficial leaders of the bootleggers – mainly because they have the respect of everyone around them, and have a reputation for becoming violent if need be. You leave them to their business, and they’ll leave you to yours – just don’t cross them. But there is a new prosecutor in town, and although he doesn’t want to shut the moonshiners down, he does want a piece of the action to allow it to continue. And to get that point across, he has brought in a new “Special Deputy” – Charlie Rakes (Guy Pearce) – from Chicago. Rakes thinks that making these hillbillies toe the line will be easy – but he didn’t count on the Bondurant boys.

There are three Bondurant’s. The oldest is Howard (Jason Clarke), a war veteran with a short fuse, and a taste for whiskey. He may not have a lot of brains, but you certainly do not want to get in his way. The middle one is Forrest (Tom Hardy), who speaks in short sentences, and sometimes merely grunts. He runs things, and has a way of looking at you from his porch that shows you don’t want to mess with him. And then there is Jack (Shia LaBeouf), the youngest. He doesn’t have the brute strength of either of his brothers – but he may just be the smartest of the three – perhaps even a little too smart. It’s because he gets too cocky that things end up getting so damn violent.

And make no mistake – Lawless is one of the most violent movies this year. Through the course of this movie there will be countless beating, shootings, stabbings, slashed throats, broken necks, explosions and even an off screen rape. Anyone who knows director John Hillcoat’s previous films will not be surprised by this level of violence – after all, his last two films were the Peckinpah style Western The Proposition and the Cormac McCarthy adaptation The Road, both of which are at least as violent as this film. But in both of those films, the violence is harsher – and hits the audience harder than it does here. The violence in those films felt like real violence – as opposed to Lawless where it feels much more like movie violence. And I think that’s because the characters in those other films were stronger – deeper characters that you really get to know, and the actors get to sink their teeth into. The performances in Lawless are all quite good. I especially liked Tom Hardy’s quiet intensity – he moves like he speaks, slowly and deliberately, but he is still quick enough to make you pay if you cross him. This is another of his wonderful, slow burn performances that makes me think of him as a young Brando. I also loved Guy Pearce’s snarling, unrepentantly evil Rakes – he dresses sharply, and speaks with an evil, nasally voice, and also has ODC, and an obsession with germs. But even these two performances – as wonderful as they are – really are one note and don’t offer much in the way of depth. No one really changes in the course of the movie – except maybe Jack, and it’s really more of his circumstances changing more than him. The rest of the cast is pretty much who you expect to be when the movie opens. I feel bad that the movie gave Gary Oldman absolutely nothing to do as famed gangster Floyd Banner (I do love his scene with the shovel though), and I don’t think that the two love interests – Mia Wasikowski’s preacher’s daughter and Jessica Chastain’s former showgirl – were necessary at all, especially since the movie chooses not to let either of these gifted actresses do much of anything.

So, no, Lawless is not a great film. But it is an expertly crafted one by Hillcoat – who gets the period detail just about perfect and keeps the film moving at a relentless pace. The best thing about the movie may just be the music – a mixture of old time hillbilly songs, new songs that sound like old time hillbilly songs, and even a version of Velvet Underground’s White Light/White Heat, done in the style, helps keep the movie humming along. So while Lawless may not be as good as the filmmakers hoped it would be, it is still more entertaining than most late summer releases are – and hell of good time at the movies.

Movie Review: The Road

The Road ****
Directed By: John Hillcoat.
Written By: Joe Penhall, based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy
Starring: Viggo Mortensen (The Man), Charlize Theron (His Wife), Kodi Smit-McPhee (The Boy), Robert Duvall (The Old Man), Guy Pearce (The Veteran), Garret Dillahunt (The Gang Member), Molly Parker (The Veteran’s Wife), Michael K. Williams (The Thief).

Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Road is one of the master bleakest books. It takes place in a post apocalyptic American landscape, where a man and his son make their way along the road, trying to reach the coast, where they hope things will be better. Along the way they have to fight off starvation, and marauding bands of cannibals – who eat other people, because there is so little left to eat. The Boy wants to ensure that they are still “The Good Guys”, but in this desolate world, it is difficult to tell what is good and who is evil anymore.

Because the book was such a huge bestseller, a movie adaptation was inevitable, even if the book itself was not overtly cinematic (the only one of McCarthy’s novels that is would be No Country for Old Men, which the Coens turned into a masterpiece two years ago). But when the announcement came that it would John Hillcoat directing, the choice seemed apt. After all, Hillcoat made the terrific, violent Western The Proposition a few years ago, that seemed to capture McCarthy’s violent, moral universe perfectly, even if it was an original screenplay. And I am happy to report that Hillcoat’s movie adaptation does not disappoint. He found a way to make the movie bleak, without being overly depressing, and fleshed out the characters who were very sparse (purposefully so) in the novel. The result is a movie that while it might be hard for some people to watch, is brilliant.

Viggo Mortensen plays the man who is on the road with his son. His wife (played in a series of wonderful flashbacks by Charlize Theron), had previously decided to take the easy way out and killed herself, leaving the Man and their son to fend for themselves. You can understand why Theron makes the decision she does – along the road; we do not meet any other women or children until the very end of the movie. They are weaker, and hence the first people the gangs attack – both as a source for sex and a source for food. She does not want to end up like that.

So the Man and his Son pack up their meager belongings into an old, rickety shopping cart, and set off down the road. Among their possessions is a gun with two bullets left – one for each of them if it ever comes to that. The book and the movie are essentially a series of vignettes as the two struggle to maintain their sanity, and their lives, in the course of the violent, morally empty world that is seemingly closing in on them.

Mortensen is brilliant in the lead role – it could in fact be his best performance to date. He is struggling with his inner moral compass – trying desperately to do the right thing, even though his options are dwindling. In different circumstances, he would be nicer to the people in need of help he meets along the way, but he no longer has that luxury. Everyone they meet may just be trying to befriend them in order to take advantage of them. In one horrifying sequence, they discover a locked basement, and break in to search for food. All they find are people chained to the walls missing limbs and covered in blood. They are being held captive there like animals being kept for slaughter. In a world like this, how is it possible to remain good?

Kodi Smit-McPhee is also wonderful as the son. He has a more innocent, more naïve view of the world, and tries desperately to get his father to be the good guy that he claims that they are. When they come across an old man (Robert Duvall, brilliant in a one scene performance) where he starts out playing at being senile, but reveals he knows more than just about anyone else, the son wants to help him. Later still, they will catch up to a thief (Michael K. Williams), who stole all of their stuff while they were sleeping, and while the man wants to humiliate the thief, and leave him for dead, the son convinces him otherwise. If they survive, but become as bad as the people around them, then really what is the point of surviving?

Like the novel, it is the relationship between the father and the son that lay at the heart of the movie. While the film may seem bleak – and certainly does not paint an overly rosy picture of humanity – it is not hopeless. The boy’s innocent optimism is really what keeps these two characters going from one scene to the next.

Directed by Hillcoat, The Road is one of the best made movies of the year. The sparse art direction and brilliant, dim cinematography makes for one of the most memorable, more desolate looking films I have ever seen. The score is at turns dark and foreboding, but still has moments that offer hope. These elements brilliantly play off the actors to make this one of the most memorable films of the year. Like the novel, the film maybe too bleak for some viewers, who do not feel the need to wallow in the depravity of humanity for two hours, but for those of us with a preference for dark material, than The Road is a must see, and one of the year’s best films.