If you were going to break into a government building in the middle of Atlanta to steal data, how would you make sure you got away with it without all of the cops closing in? Such is the predicament for a group of robbers in the Atlanta-filmed “Triple 9,” until one of them has an idea: What if they killed a cop and called in a “999” (code for “officer down”)? Intriguing idea, but how could they pull that off? Well, it just so happens that two of the robbers are policemen and one of them knows just the guy they can kill — his own partner. While the premise of “Triple 9” is thrilling without a doubt, the film fails to keep up with its momentum and doesn’t quite reach its highest potential.
“Triple 9” has a surprisingly huge star-studded cast. The robbers are made up of Chiwetel Ejiofor (“12 Years a Slave”), Aaron Paul (“Breaking Bad”), Norman Reedus (“The Walking Dead”), Clifton Collins Jr. (“Pacific Rim”) and Anthony Mackie (“Captain America: The Winter Soldier”); the latter two play the corrupt cops. Then there’s the Russian Mafia whom the robbers work for, consisting of Kate Winslet (“Steve Jobs”) and Gal Gadot (“Fast & Furious 6”). But wait, there’s more! We haven’t even gotten to the good guys yet, who are Woody Harrelson (“True Detective”) and Casey Affleck (“The Finest Hours”), playing police detectives. If this seems like too much of an A-list cast, you’re right — it certainly feels a little crowded in this film that’s just under two hours long.
With so many characters played by so many stars, it can be a little hard to tell just who exactly is the main character. Looking at it strictly from what the goal and conflict are, Ejiofor is arguably the protagonist as Michael Atwood, the leader of the heist group. Why is he pulling jobs for the Russian Mafia? It turns out he once had a relationship with the sister (Gadot) of a Russian mob boss (Winslet) and the two of them had a baby together. Winslet’s character, Irina Vlaslov, is holding Atwood’s son as a hostage, not allowing Atwood to see him unless he pulls off these robberies for her.
The film has so many interconnected plotlines that it would be too much to try to go through any more. The web of stories and characters making up “Triple 9” isn’t difficult to understand, but the film doesn’t elevate the conflicts as much as one might expect it to. “Triple 9” has a very strong beginning, a solid yet looser middle and a weak third act. The last part of the film isn’t terrible; the issue is that the story goes below the fast pace it had in the beginning. Instead of progressively elevating, the overall story seems to wind down as it moves forward, thus missing out on opportunities that could have made it even better.
The film’s biggest problem for sure is its huge cast. Winslet is the antagonist, yet she doesn’t have nearly as much screen time as she deserves. Affleck as Detective Chris Allen is the only guy you can really root for in this movie, but he’s an innocent character caught in the middle of a story that’s bigger and beyond him, although the film spends a lot of screen time on him. Many might consider him to be the main character, but he doesn’t have nearly as strong of a conflict internally or externally as Ejiofor’s Atwood does, who doesn’t get as much focus as he should.
While the film’s third act leaves more to be desired, the film overall is still a thrilling story with plenty of conflict amongst the robbers as they plan out their heist while one of the dirty cops prepares to kill his partner. “Triple 9” sometimes feels like two different movies trying to converge together: a story about a group of robbers trying to break free from the Russian Mafia and a story about a pair of cops where one is squeaky clean and the other is dirty. The film would have been much better if the people behind it picked one over the other and put more focus into it.
