Tagged with Michael Mann

Triple 9: Mini-review


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Woody Harrleson

Woody Harrelson is one of many wasting their time and talent in Triple 9

C-In police lingo, a Code 999 means “Officer down – urgent help needed.” The makers of the new action thriller Triple 9 might well have sent out a Code 999 of their own. For, despite an excellent cast and two dazzling set pieces, Triple 9‘s script needed some urgent rewriting help that never arrived.

The movie starts with a bang as a highly trained crew of crooked cops and ex-military criminals led by Michael Atwood (Chiwetel Ejiofor) pull off an elaborate daylight bank robbery. As cover for an even more dangerous second robbery, the team decide to kill Chris Allen (Casey Affleck), the new partner of Marcus Belmont (Anthony Mackie), one of the crooked cops in the crew. However, Chris’s uncle, Jeffrey (Woody Harrelson) just happens to be the detective investigating the first robbery.

Director John Hillcoat has a cornucopia of acting talent at his disposal in Triple 9, including Kate Winslet as a Russian mobster’s wife calling the shots for the robbers and Aaron Paul and Norman Reedus as two more crew members. In addition, Hillcoat brilliantly stages both the bank robbery and a shootout at an apartment complex (shown in the clip below). These sequences bring to mind the bank robbery scene in Michael Mann‘s Heat, a film that Triple 9 screenwriter Matt Cook undoubtedly tried to emulate. However, Cook’s script is hopelessly muddled as he tries and repeatedly fails to depict the morally ambiguous nature of almost every character in the movie. Triple 9 simply has too many characters competing for too little screen time. Chiewetel Ejiofor is top billed, but in two hours, virtually the only thing the audience learns about him is that he has a son that the Russians are keeping away from him. The plot has the expected twists and double crosses, but the audience will probably be too weary from trying to keep up with the characters to pay much attention. With a script this lackluster and confusing, it’s no surprise that Woody Harrelson comes off best here, livening up nearly every scene with zingers and one-liners. When Harrelson is onscreen or the action is going down, Triple 9 comes alive, but otherwise, it’s a cinematic Code 10—off duty. Continue reading →

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Blackhat: Mini-Review


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Chris Hemsworth

Chris Hemsworth is the world’s buffest and least credible hacker.

CDirector Michael Mann faced two big challenges in his latest film, Blackhat. First, he had to make the acts of typing in and reading computer code interesting to mainstream audiences. Second, he had to convince them that Chris Hemsworth was actually the world’s best hacker. He wasn’t successful on either count. To make matters worse, he overdirected the actions scenes in the movie so that they were even less interesting that the scenes featuring Hemsworth hammering away at his keyboard.

Blackhat is the code name for a hacker who, in short order, sabotages a Chinese nuclear reactor and wreaks havoc with the U.S. commodities markets. China and the United States (represented by FBI agent Viola Davis) join forces to catch the hacker. The Chinese computer expert persuades Davis to release Hemsworth from prison to aid in the effort. The villain’s plot is actually rather clever, and the detective work involved in tracking him down is interesting and easy to follow. To overcome computer programming’s inherent lack of visual interest, Mann tries to jazz up the movie with his trademark dazzling visuals (the nighttime shots of Hong Kong are spectacular), and several action sequences.

Ultimately, however, Blackhat feels like an entertaining one-hour television episode blown up to a lumbering two hours. The action scenes in particular lack Mann’s usual energy. The picture and sound quality in these sequences felt amateurish, and they needed much tighter editing. Add in the wooden performances by Hemsworth and his love interest, Chinese actress Wei Tang, and the result is a movie that’s never more than mildly interesting. Continue reading →

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