Ex-Special Forces member Michael Atwood (Chiwetel Ejiofor) leads a crew of corrupt police officers and former soldiers (Anthony Mackie, Clifton Collins Jr., Aaron Paul and Norman Reedus) in a daring bank robbery that ends in a frenzied freeway shootout. As Detective Sergeant Jeffrey Allen (Woody Harrelson) investigates the spectacular crime, he is unaware that his own nephew, straight-arrow cop Chris Allen (Casey Affleck) has unknowingly been partnered with one of the robbers on Atlanta’s gang task force. When ruthless Russian mob boss Irina Vlaslov (Kate Winslet) strong-arms the crew into attempting one last, seemingly impossible robbery, they decide their best hope is to divert the entire police force’s attention by staging a “999” incident — cop code for “officer down.”
The film gets off to a very good start with its opening bank robbery and ensuing freeway chase and shootout. From there it is a long slope downhill slope into mediocrity. . TRIPLE 9 makes the most crucial error of falling into the category of a being a thriller with no thrills. To say the film is unoriginal is an understatement. This film is very similar in plot as the 2012 Ah-Nuld film SABATOGE which is far superior to this film. Despite the good cast giving good performance, particularly Harrelson, channeling his inner Matthew McConaughey, and Affleck, the film goes nowhere. These are good characters trapped in a bad film. As much as I liked some of the characters the film did not seem to have time to properly develop them. Motives are unclear and some of the relationships are given superficial treatment. My mind started to wonder during the film thinking these are smart actors; what was it that they saw in this lackluster script that attracted them to be involved in this film? Being shot in Atlanta it does not appear the travel to an exotic location was the attraction. This is no diss to my home state.
I kept waiting for something, anything to happen to make me sit up in my seat and take notice. Once the end credits starting rolling I still sat there waiting on something to happen. That moment never came. Skip this film and see SABATOGE or better yet TRAINING DAY instead. Even see television’s SHADES OF BLUE with Jennifer Lopez is better than this film. All TRIPLE 9 has to offer is an A-Level cast in a B-Level movie. A bit of insider information; typically at a screening I am asked to provide my initial thoughts on the film. My words to the studio rep were “this is a by-the-numbers run-of-mill cop thriller slightly elevated by good acting.” You will not see that in the ads for this film.
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