Today, we had some time to kill and ended up at the Pacific Theatre at the Americana in Glendale. Triple 9 was starting in five minutes...decent cast, action movie, why not? Look up and read the tagline on the poster. We should have known from the tagline.
PLOT- A group of criminals, including corrupt cops, must pull off two heists for a Russian mob in Atlanta, headed by the fierce Irina Vlaslov ( Kate Winslet). One of the criminals, Michael Atwood (Chiwetel Ejiofor) has a child with Vlaslov's sister and Vlaslov is using the kid as leverage to get Atwood to work for her. To complicate matters, rookie cop Chris Allen (Casey Affleck) has been recently partnered with Marcus Belmont ( Anthony Mackie), one of the corrupt cops. Allen's uncle, Jeffery ( Woody Harrelson) is also a cop working on the heist case. Will Atwood be able to rescue his son? Or will Allen uncover the truth, before the group is able to pull of the second heist?
LIKE - Not much. It was entertaining watching Kate Winslet play a Russian mobster. She was probably the only actor in this film who was cast against their normal type. Also, some of the action sequences were exciting, especially the bank robbery at the start of the film.
DISLIKE- Much. Triple 9 was terrible. We nearly walked out and probably should have. If we had been watching Triple 9 at home, we would have given it about fifteen minutes. The story was a mess- absurd plot, painful dialogue, tons of exposition, wooden characters that relied heavily on stereotypes, zero characters to care about, et...just all around awful writing. What made everything worse, is Triple 9 takes itself very seriously. I laughed, but not because I was supposed to.
The acting, it's bad. I'm not sure that this is really the actors fault when the lines that they are forced to deliver are laughable. I'm positive that they all thought, "How did I end up on this shit project?". Harrelson, playing a semi-good cop with questionable tactics and a substance abuse problem, is given a bulk of the opportunity to shine with cheesy lines and melodramatic moments.
Oddly enough, the worst acting goes to an actress that I've never heard of, in a role that I couldn't even tell you the character's name without looking it up on IMDB. Michelle Ang plays Harrelson's partner on the force, Trina Ling. Although Ang only has a handful of lines, she is in a number of shots. Every time she is on screen, she is doing something distracting, like making a big gesture in the background or making a noise. It made think of an extra who is trying to get noticed. Truthfully, her character isn't significant to the story and I shouldn't be dedicating a whole paragraph to her in my review. I shouldn't have noticed her, but I did. This actress was going to make the most of her screen time and it worked. Ugh.
RECOMMEND- No. Don't do it. Trust me.