Triple 9

For F*** Magazine

TRIPLE 9

Director : John Hillcoat
Cast : Casey Affleck, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Anthony Mackie, Clifton Collins Jr., Aaron Paul, Norman Reedus, Kate Winslet, Woody Harrelson, Gal Gadot, Teresa Palmer
Genre : Action/Thriller
Run Time : 115 mins
Opens : 17 March 2016
Rating : M18 (Coarse Language, Nudity and Violence)

Out on the streets, it’s never black and white – though sometimes it is red, owing to the dye packs that permanently stain stole cash. Oh, the red is also often blood. Criminals Michael Atwood (Ejiofor), Russell Welch (Reedus) and his brother Gabe (Paul), along with corrupt cops Marcus Belmont (Mackie) and Franco Rodriguez (Collins), have been committing armed bank robberies. The crew is working for Irina Vlaslov (Winslet), the wife of a powerful Russian Mafioso. Michael has a son with Irina’s sister Elena (Gadot), further complicating matters. To pull off another job, Marcus and Franco suggest calling in a code “999”, i.e. killing a cop to distract the rest of the police force so the crew can break into a government office and steal data concerning Irina’s husband. Their target is Chris Allen (Affleck), Marcus’ new partner who has transferred from a different district. Chris’ uncle happens to be Sgt. Det. Jeffrey Allen (Harrelson), who is tracking down the bank robbers. The stage is set for all-out war on the streets of Atlanta, Georgia.

            First off, we would like to get that “oh, this stars James Lye, Wong Li-Lin, Lim Yu Beng and Mark Richmond” joke out of the way. If you were watching Singaporean television in the 90s, you know what we’re talking about. Anyway, Triple 9’s screenplay, written by Matt Cook, landed on the 2010 Black List of most-liked scripts making the rounds in Hollywood and has finally been produced. At the helm is John Hillcoat, who directed the revisionist western The Proposition and the prohibition-era bootlegging drama Lawless. Triple 9 is a scuzzy, grimy crime thriller which liberally borrows from the likes of Training Day and Heat. The action sequences are messy and frenzied; our protagonists are mostly criminals who don’t get along; we deal with the theme of honour (or lack thereof) among thieves and there’s an abundance of street-level violence.

            There are many points where Triple 9’s plot feels like it comes straight out of a direct-to-DVD action flick starring 50 Cent and a pre-Mr. Robot Christian Slater. Hillcoat has managed to assemble an impressive cast and it’s impossible not to have high expectations looking the list, which comprises an Oscar winner, Oscar nominees and dependable character actors. Sometimes, seeing a name actor covered in tattoos and scars, all sweaty and grimacing while toting a gun, can feel like we’re just watching a pampered star play dress-up. For the most part, Triple 9 does feel fairly authentic, with the city of Atlanta actually getting to play itself instead of doubling for some other locale. Nothing feels prettied up, nothing’s slick and shiny and the situations are overblown but not ludicrously so.

            As the straight-arrow rookie with a bit of a chip on his shoulder, Affleck is well cast and a scene in which Chris threatens a local Cartel bigwig without knowing what he’s getting into does demonstrate that the character is out of his element. Unfortunately, Ejiofor is harder to buy as a tough-talking thug. He has played sinister characters before, but he’s unable to fully shake off that innate nobility that has served him so well in other, very different roles. It comes with the territory of crime movies, but the members of the team are insufficiently distinct and can blur together after a while. Of the group, Collins is actually the most convincing as the unscrupulous, two-faced Rodriguez. Unfortunately, Paul and Reedus don’t bring too much to the table beyond “hey, Jesse Pinkman and Daryl Dixon are brothers!”

            Winslet chomps the drab scenery as the main villain of the piece, a stereotypical mob wife who’s been handed the reins of underworld power while her husband sits it out in a Russian prison. It’s a character even more ridiculously evil than Jeanine Matthews in Divergent and Insurgent. Gadot and Palmer are there to strut about in abbreviated outfits, providing eye candy and doing little else. Harrelson also doesn’t get a chance to work his offbeat, quirky charm in a role that could’ve been played by pretty much anyone.

            Triple 9 is a disappointingly generic crime flick that is elevated ever so slightly by its formidable cast. Not too much of a spin is put on the crime thriller formula and the would-be shocking twists and turns in the last act fail to have much impact at all. Hillcoat keeps things moving along and consciously avoids stretches of exposition, but that has the side effect of making the connections between the characters a little confusing to keep track of. At 115 minutes, it’s also a mite too long and could do with some tightening up. But if you’ve a taste for this sort of thing, you’ll probably find Triple 9 to be a competent thriller set on the mean, mean streets.

Summary: It fails to live up to the expectations generated by that cast list, but Triple 9 has enough brutal thrills and cops-and-robbers intrigue to scrape by.

RATING: 3 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

The Finest Hours

For F*** Magazine 

THE FINEST HOURS 

Director : Craig Gillespie
Cast : Chris Pine, Casey Affleck, Ben Foster, Eric Bana, Holliday Grainger, Kyle Gallner, John Magaro, John Ortiz, Josh Stewart
Genre : Drama
Run Time : 118 mins
Opens : 18 February 2016
Rating : PG (Some Intense Sequences)

Venture into the tumultuous waters of Cape Cod to witness of one of the most harrowing rescues in maritime history in this historical disaster drama. It is February 1952 and the S.S Pendleton, a T2 oil tanker, is caught in a severe storm off the Chatham coast, breaking clean in twain. Bernie Webber (Pine), a newly-engaged Coast Guard crewman, is dispatched by Chief Warrant Officer Daniel Cluff (Bana) to take his tiny lifeboat out to sea to rescue the Pendleton’s crew. Bernie takes Richard Livesey (Foster), Andrew Fitzgerald (Gallner) and Ervin Maske (John Magaro) with him. Aboard the severed stern section of the Pendleton, first assistant engineer Ray Sybert (Affleck) is forced to take charge, devising a method to keep what’s left of the ship afloat as long as possible. Bernie’s fiancé Miriam Pentinen (Grainger), along with the townsfolk of Chatham, await the safe return of Bernie, his crew and the men of the Pendleton, as their odds of survival grow slimmer by the minute.

            The Finest Hours is based on the book of the same name, subtitled “The True Story of the U.S. Coast Guard's Most Daring Sea Rescue”, by Michael J. Tougias and Casey Sherman. Director Craig Gillespie has delivered a resolutely old-fashioned adventure drama, harking back to the days “when men were men”, so to speak. While there’s definitely a certain dignity to The Finest Hours in its celebration of heroes who aren’t widely known to non-maritime history buffs, it’s also something of a drag in parts. There are individual sequences that are genuine nail-biters featuring convincing visual and special effects work, but in between those, there’s a curious dearth of momentum or urgency, particularly since this revolves around a time-sensitive rescue attempt. In fact, it’s only around 45 minutes into the film that Bernie and his crew actually get into their lifeboat and set sail.

            

While Pine is more Abercrombie pretty boy than Old Hollywood rugged, there’s a matinee idol quality to him that makes him an ideal candidate to portray the determined, courageous hero in a period adventure piece. That “Bawston” accent he’s attempting is iffy, though. The film doesn’t begin on the high seas, but rather by establishing the romance between Bernie and Miriam, hoping that this will be the emotional anchor. Unfortunately, it’s not a particularly compelling romance and this element of the film has been dramatized the most from how things really unfolded. Miriam is portrayed by Grainger as a headstrong, proactive woman, but when she charges into Cluff’s office to demand that he makes Bernie turn the lifeboat around, it comes off more as an annoyance than a loving act of concern. The trope of the worried significant other back home pining for our hero’s safe return is often unavoidable in films of this type, and the attempts to add to this are generally unsuccessful.

            Casey Affleck’s demeanour is not as traditionally masculine and heroic as that of his older brother Ben, but he does sell the role of someone who has to think fast and work hard under pressure. As the boss from out of town who is not generally well-liked, Bana has sufficient gravitas but noticeably wrestles with the character’s southern accent. The performances are generally serviceable but ultimately, there isn’t enough to distinguish most of the crew members of the Pendleton, or the men with Bernie in the lifeboat, for that matter.

            Michael Corenblith’s production design and Louise Frogley’s costume design bring a level of authenticity to The Finest Hours and in the grand scheme of movies billed as “based on a true story”, The Finest Hours makes relatively minor deviations from established history. This is director Gillespie’s second film for Walt Disney Studios, following sports drama Million Dollar Arm, also based on a true story. While The Finest Hours is Gillespie’s most ambitious film on the technical front, it pushes no boundaries in its narrative. The startlingly intense and immersive scenes of the tiny lifeboat getting ravaged by immense waves are thrilling, but the film never quite reaches the rousing, inspirational heights it’s aiming for.

Summary: Harking back to the disaster dramas of yesteryear, The Finest Hours has its riveting moments but the story, as remarkable as it is, ends up insufficiently impactful.

RATING: 3 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

            

ParaNorman

 For F*** Magazine, Singapore

 PARANORMAN

2012

Starring the voices of: Kodi Smit-McPhee, Tucker Albrizzi, Anna Kendrick, Casey Affleck, Christopher Mintz-Plasse

Directed by: Sam Fell and Chris Butler

Dr Dolittle could speak to the animals, and he was celebrated and praised as a result. On the other hand, small-town kid Norman Babcock (Smit-McPhee) can speak to the dead, but is shunned and mocked as a result. Norman lives in Blithe Hollow, Massachusetts, famous for its Puritan witch-hunting heritage – the place is to witches what Rachel, Nevada is to UFOs. Norman has a great love for horror movies and is a zombie aficionado, owning a zombie-themed alarm clock and toothbrush in addition to old film posters.

He is saddled with a special ability and can see, speak to and interact with restless spirits, cursed to wander the earth. This gets him ostracized at school and earns the ire of his shallow, ditzy older sister Courtney (Kendrick). He is picked on especially often by the thuggish, dim-witted bully Alvin (Mintz-Plasse). The only kid in school who seems to like him is the portly Neil (Albrizzi), who possesses some eccentricities of his own and is excited by the prospect of his friend being an actual necromancer. Courtney has eyes for Neil’s hunky and clueless older brother Mitch (Affleck), who becomes the gang’s designated driver. It so happens that Norman’s crazy old uncle Mr Penderghast (John Goodman) is about to kick the bucket, and tasks Norman with reading an incantation from a grimoire, in order to appease a witch who was executed 300 years ago to the day by seven Puritans. The Puritans are cursed to rise from their graves and wander around the town as zombies; and as the residents go into frenzy, it’s up to Norman, Neil, Mitch, Courtney and Alvin to restore the town to normalcy.

ParaNorman is easily one of the very best films this reviewer has seen this year, animated or otherwise. It’s an outstanding showcase of technical artistry, a display of a mastery of craft and a well-told tale with a strong emotional core. ParaNorman was created using stop-motion animation, one of the most painstaking mediums to work in ever. In these days of studios practically belching out cheaply-made 3D animated films, it is refreshing and heartening to see a movie made with so much love and hard work, with CGI used to enhance and augment the traditional puppets, models and backgrounds as opposed to replacing them altogether. If making a movie is akin to creating a world, then a film like this is probably the ultimate example. There are rich atmospherics, a markedly non-gimmicky (albeit not entirely necessary) use of 3D and some remarkable character designs that help the viewer get a rough understanding of the characters’ personalities just by looking at them.

Beyond and probably even more so than its visual flair and appeal is the story’s heart. On the surface, it appears to be a ghoulish comedy, a fun romp with a few haunted house-style frights and nothing more. However, this is really a tale of courage and compassion, about the power of acceptance and how it’s perfectly fine, cool even, to be different. Everybody can relate to being under-appreciated, and we’ve all felt like outcasts at one point or another. Just like superhero comics like Superman or the X-Men, ParaNorman is a fantasy in which the main character proves his worth, the very qualities for which he is shunned coming into play and ultimately saving those that scorned him. Kodi Smit-McPhee of Let Me In fame is excellent as the voice of Norman, and the rest of the voice cast provides similarly evocative and, when need be, over-the-top vocal performances that really tie it all together.

This is also a loving homage to horror film clichés and to the appeal of their kitsch – there’s a great bit near the start when Norman is watching an old zombie movie, as he often does, and the actress in the film pushes aside a boom mike that accidentally comes into frame. Norman is a bit of a throwback in that he’s a horror movie geek, just as many prominent filmmakers today (Guillermo del Toro and Edgar Wright, to name two) are. There is a good mix of gross-out moments and small scares leading up to a bona fide epic and rather intense climactic confrontation. The movie is also a throwback in that it’s a kids’ adventure flick in the vein of Stand By Me, E.T.: The Extraterrestrial and The Goonies, and in fact shares a lot in common with last year’s Super 8.

In addition to its striking style, ParaNorman boasts a certain earnestness in its story-telling, very relatable characters and solid story arcs and evolution for them to undergo. It’s quite the laugh riot, featuring a good mix of slapstick pratfalls and more nuanced humour, but is also very rich emotionally, providing surprisingly mature ponderings on mortality. It’s also a fable about standing up to bullies, and taking pride in one’s own quirks, however unappreciated by the rest they may be. This reviewer will readily admit that he cried buckets through the whole film and particularly at the end. This doesn’t feel like your garden variety, over-commercially driven Hollywood cash-in; it’s kid-aimed but never pandering, and is something almost everybody (barring the really young ‘uns) should see.

SUMMARY: This is a near-perfect brew of wit, heart, humour, adventure, scares and BRAINS – an outstanding piece of animation which doesn’t feel stale, silly and zombie-eaten like much of its animated peers. 

RATING: 4.5/5 STARS

Jedd Jong