Triple 9

An American film highlighting their right to bear arms, blackmail, extort and murder without penalty. Starring Jesse from Breaking Bad, and Daryl from The Walking Dead.

I tend to write a lot of negative things about films. Call it human nature but I find it very easy to criticise rather than compliment. It may shock you then that I don’t have a great deal of negative things to say about this film. Sure it’s a little ‘Americany’ with its negligent gun laws and tinfoil hat corruptness, but overall it was entertaining, which is more than I can say about a lot of new films. I worry that the only reason I did find it entertaining, is that I hadn’t heard/seen this story before; it is a completely new intellectual property, and not a reboot, revamp, re-release, sequel or prequel. Regardless it is no fun to read something positive, so I’ll try my best to pick this one to pieces.

"I'll never let go..of my right to bear arms

This film starts out strong with a good mix of action, character development and plot introduction. It builds a clear understanding of the villain and protagonist group, defines their motives and includes explosions. I.E. everything you want in an action film. The protagonists in this case are corrupt police officers and drug fiends which makes for an interesting conflict of emotion, but not every story needs to be good overcoming evil and it sure is nice to feel something in a cinema other than disappointment. Then things go a little awry when a second antagonist is introduced, then an entire gang of them and another protagonist. Also it turns out some of the ‘good guys’ are doing bad things for good reasons (family), and some are doing bad things for bad reasons (money/power) and the only good guy doing it for good reasons is made out like he’s a bad guy. It’s all just very confusing, and I found it difficult to pick a character to stand beside. To further complicate matters not too much happens, there really isn’t a clear goal after the first heist, but there is boobs and surely that counts for something.

Triple 9 manages to pull it all together for a brief period at the climax where an unexpected plot twist occurs, only to have it all fall apart at the ending. Put simply the ending of this film is that everyone dies. Good, bad or neutral no one is spared, which hopefully makes it difficult for them to write a sequel consequently sparking some actual thought. Given it’s inability to captivate during the final third, an audience might be drawn from their stupor to ponder the films finer points. Like, for example, how much murder paperwork this office must do on a daily basis or how every character seems to be corrupted in some manner and most particularly how Aaron Paul managed to play Jesse Pinkman, and Norman Reedus as Daryl Dixon in an unrelated franchise. Also the weird Jewish villain subtext and undertone. Oh how the mind does wander.

Aside from the ending, Triple 9 is fairly solid. There are a few questionable plot points such as the enormous amount of corruptness in this particular district, and a lot of emotionally void, point blank murder that is just overlooked, but maybe that’s just America doing it’s thing. It’s strong opening makes up for its weak ending, and as such I give it 7 guns out of 10.