Largely displacing the old Sicilian mafia in popular culture, the Russian mob has become the watchword for ruthless, sinister criminality. Triple 9 introduces the Russian Jewish mob with gunmen in dark suits and yamakas operating from the back of a kosher slaughterhouse. Their boss, Irina (a garishly made-up Kate Winslet), wears a triple-size Star of David necklace as she coolly inspects a car trunk filled with writhing naked men, mouths duct-taped and wrists bound for their final ride. No one stands in the way of the Russian Jewish mob!
By contrast to the mobsters, the hero of Triple 9, an honest cop called Chris (Casey Affleck), always wears a cross outside his shirt. One can’t help but wonder what screenwriter Matt Cook had in mind, but then, his screenplay, scotch-taped together by a patchy plot, is mostly an excuse for firefights of Bagdad intensity, unconvincing car chases, exploding SUVs and all around bloody mayhem. Chris is unaware that his partner, Michael (Chiwetel Ejiofor), is on the take, part of a crew of criminals and crooked cops doing the mob’s bidding.
The crew is clearly in too deep. Pressured by steely eyed Irina into a seemingly impossible heist, they come up with a plan: kill Chris (officer down!) to draw the entire police department to the crime scene, leaving the city utterly unguarded.
Other than its depiction of the slums of Atlanta as an urban hell, the strength of Triple 9 is its desperate Gentile characters. (The Russian Jews never emerge from stereotypes.) Triple 9 boasts a good cast of actors, all of them handling their roles well. The standout part for its eccentricity is Chris’ sharp-eyed, pot-smoking uncle, a cynical but honest detective played at full tilt by Woody Harrelson. Triple 9’s director, John Hillcoat, was once responsible for a fine film, a somber adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalypse novel, The Road. Falling drastically below the bar he once set, Hillcoat was unable to rise above the increasingly tawdry, blood-soaked conventions of the crime thriller genre.
Triple 9
2 stars out of 4
Chiwetel Ejiofor
Casey Affleck
Directed by John Hillcoat
Rated R
