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 Martian

For F*** Magazine

THE MARTIAN

Director : Ridley Scott
Cast : Matt Damon, Jeff Daniels, Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig, Michael Peña, Kate Mara, Sean Bean, Sebastian Stan, Aksel Hennie, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Donald Glover, Benedict Wong
Genre : Sci-Fi/Adventure
Run Time : 142 mins
Opens : 1 October 2015
Rating : PG13 (Some Coarse Language and Disturbing Scenes)

Someone alert David Bowie – there is life on Mars after all. It comes in the form of astronaut Mark Watney (Damon), who is stranded on the planet after being presumed dead when a sandstorm strikes his crew. The rest of the Ares III astronauts, Lewis (Chastain), Martinez (Peña), Johanssen (Mara), Beck (Stan) and Vogel (Hennie) are bound for home, unaware that Watney is still alive. Watney is left to fend for himself, drawing on every ounce of resourcefulness as he makes the most out of extremely limited supplies, eking out an existence on Mars. Back on earth, NASA director Teddy Sanders (Daniels), Mars missions director Vincent Kapoor (Ejiofor), public relations manager Annie Montrose (Wiig), Jet Propulsion Lab director Bruce Ng (Wong) and others labour over devising a rescue plan once they discover Watney did not die as they had believed. In the face of sheer adversity, the “Martian” must survive and work towards finally coming home. 

The Martian is based on Andy Weir’s 2011 novel of the same name, which was lauded for being thoroughly researched. There exists a scale, albeit a subjective one, of science fiction “hardness”, with something like Guardians of the Galaxy on the “soft” side and 2001: A Space Odyssey on the “hard” side. The Martian is a rare big-budget Hollywood hard sci-fi film and it emerges triumphant. Director Ridley Scott hasn’t had a spotless track record, coming off last year’s below-average Biblical epic Exodus: Gods and Kings. His previous sci-fi film, 2012’s Prometheus, proved hugely divisive. With most of the key crew from Prometheus including director of photography Dariusz Wolski, editor Pietro Scalia, production designer Arthur Max and costume designer Janty Yates returning, Scott has managed to more than redeem himself. 

The Martian boasts a sweeping, epic majesty juxtaposed with the intimate tale of one man’s survival. Jordan’s Wadi Rum seems to have made a steady career doubling for the fourth planet from the sun in films like Mission to Mars, Red Planet, The Last Days on Mars and this one. While everything does look a little too slick and Hollywood-ised, there’s still a sense of authenticity, the harsh environs and the sheer remoteness of the Martian landscape driving home how slim Watney’s chances of making it out alive are. Real-life NASA staffers must be drooling at seeing manned Mars missions depicted so gloriously on the big screen, given how bureaucracy, a lack of funds and myriad other obstacles stand in the way of this actually being realized. The 3D effects are superb, most noticeably when we get to see astronauts floating through the long hallways of their spacecraft and in the exterior shots of the detailed and realistic Hermes ship drifting through space. 

Screenwriter Drew Goddard adapted Weir’s novel for the screen, and on paper, The Martian certainly sounds like it could be boring, with too many finicky technical details potentially holding the viewer at arm’s length. A good portion of the story unfolds in voice-overs that are packed with scientific exposition, but there is just as much showing as there is telling and the script is light enough on its feet, not getting weighed down by the “boring stuff”. This is a film that celebrates and champions science, all of its characters being the best and brightest. It’s also an extremely human survival story that almost defiantly refuses to spiral into mawkish sentimentality, while still hitting many emotional beats. Perhaps most surprisingly, The Martian is extremely funny. There are stakes and dire straits, but the tone is pleasantly upbeat and optimistic throughout. Sean Bean even gets to make a Lord of the Rings reference, sending many audience members in this reviewer’s screening howling with laughter. 

The Martian has been described as Apollo 13 meets Cast Away, and both films happen to star Tom Hanks. Here, Damon exudes an irresistible likeability that gives even Hanks a run for his money. Watney’s indomitable spirit and how he keeps his sense of humour intact throughout his ordeal keep us keen in seeing him alive. We cheer each instance in which his MacGyvering succeeds and wince whenever he’s hit by another setback. “Mars will come to fear my botany powers,” Watney jokingly proclaims as he sets about growing potatoes. Naturally, there are moments of introspection in which Watney considers the magnitude of his plight, and Damon is able to play those moments earnestly and compellingly. 

While the film is squarely Damon’s to carry, Scott has assembled a robust supporting cast to back him up. Cheesy as it sounds, there is something inspiring about seeing so many people put their heads together in working towards a common goal. Chastain proudly carries on the tradition of capable female characters in Ridley Scott movies, her Commander Melissa Lewis steely yet calm, a natural leader with an amusing penchant for 70s disco music. As NASA director Teddy Sanders, Daniels is the hard-nosed, pragmatic bureaucrat, but in his hands, the character does not become the stereotypical authority figure who’s standing in everyone’s way. Ejiofor does his share of hand-wringing, but it makes sense given the immense pressure on his character. Wiig is fine in a role that is not overtly comedic, though her presence at Mission Control might be distracting to those familiar with her prolific comedic exploits. 

There are places where the film falls back on formulaic genre trappings: the pilot Martinez tells engineer Johanssen to explain something “in English”; there are many scenes where characters take objects like pens and salt shakers and use them as stand-ins for spacecraft and planets in demonstrating manoeuvres and Donald Glover shows up as a hyperactive genius prone to Eureka moments. That said, it is remarkable just how refreshing The Martian is. In this day and age, it seems everything has been done before, especially in big sci-fi blockbusters. That The Martian manages to be so unique and engaging is certainly commendable. In telling the story of the efforts to bring Mark Watney home, Scott has hit a home run. 

Summary: A thrilling, surprisingly funny survival film with a grounding in actual science, The Martian features one of Matt Damon’s most charming performances to date and is a joyous ode to the merits of ingenuity and perseverance. 

RATING: 4.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong 

12 Years a Slave

For F*** Magazine

12 YEARS A SLAVE

Director: Steve McQueen
Cast:         Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Benedict Cumberbatch, Brad Pitt, Paul Dano, Paul Giamatti, Sarah Paulson, Lupita Nyong’o, Alfre Woodard
Genre: Drama
Run Time: 133 mins
Opens: 19 December 2013
Rating: M18 (Violence and Sexual Scenes)

The term “historical film” carries with it the old Hollywood-style notion of an epic scope, a cast of thousands and grandiose spectacle. In spite of the appeal of such films, what has been proven time and again is that audiences gravitate to personal, intimate stories, and that focusing on the journey of a single character or a small group of characters helps put history in perspective – especially the parts of the past that are hardest to come face to face with. 12 Years a Slave is perhaps the most pertinent of such films in recent memory.



Solomon Northup (Ejiofor) is a free black man living with his wife and two children in Saratoga Springs, New York, circa 1841. A skilled violinist, Solomon is approached by a pair of travelling performers who offer him a job as a circus musician. The next day, Solomon awakens chained in a bare room and realises he has been kidnapped and duped into slavery. In New Orleans, he is sold to plantation owner and preacher William Ford (Cumberbatch) and comes into conflict with Ford’s overseer John Tibeats (Dano). Solomon, forced to take on the slave name “Platt”, is later handed to another slave-owner, the savage Edwin Epps (Fassbender), who frequently brutalises the slaves under him. In the midst of his ordeal, Solomon meets the likes of Patsey (Nyong’o), who consistently picks the most cotton but is the most severely mistreated of the slaves, and Bass (Pitt), a Canadian construction worker sympathetic to his plight. Solomon continues to endure slavery, yearning to be freed and reunited with his family.



12 Years a Slave is based on Northup’s autobiography of the same name, a book which director Steve McQueen’s wife found and brought to his attention. McQueen had been looking to collaborate with screenwriter John Ridley (whose credits include U-Turn, Three Kings and Red Tails) on a film about slavery and settled on telling Northup’s story. McQueen, a video artist who made his feature film debut with 2008’s Hunger, has earned a reputation as a filmmaker who makes films that are worth watching but aren’t exactly easy to watch, and 12 Years a Slave definitely falls under that umbrella.



Issues of race and equality continue to rear their heads in a supposedly “post-racial” America, and different filmmakers have addressed this in their own ways. McQueen, his cast and crew have pulled off a truly commendable balancing act. 12 Years a Slave is raw and pulls no punches, but it does not come off as overwrought or emotionally manipulative and isn’t a jump-on-a-soapbox-style polemic. It’s a story that would be very easy to politicise, but McQueen resists. It’s a grim, well-painted portrait of one person’s extraordinary journey which comes off feeling largely bereft of the embellishments that tend to accompany films of the “based on a true story” genre.



Ejiofor has garnered positive buzz and has been named an awards season favourite for his portrayal of Northup, and it is very easy to see why. His performance is earnest and authentic; the determination, desperation, sadness and particularly, the humanity he displays coming together to create a person and not a faceless victim. It is also worth noting that one doesn’t get the impression that the role is a blatant awards bid, as is sometimes all too evident with other actors. It has been said that audiences might lose sight of the larger, horrific picture of the landscape of slavery at the time when presented with just Solomon’s story, but Ejiofor takes the responsibility of doing justice to Solomon Northup’s name as seriously as he should, and it works incredibly well.



The film’s supporting cast provides gravitas in spades and help populate an already-convincing period setting. Cumberbatch has had quite a year, what with Star Trek Into Darkness, The Fifth Estate and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. His William Ford continues that winning streak, the character’s presence raising issues of morality and ethics (he’s a preacher and a slave-owner) without calling too much attention to that theme. Fassbender, who was the lead in McQueen’s first two films, makes for a terrifying and truly despicable Edwin Epps and yet never makes the character a thin, monstrous cliché. The film holds the more decent Ford and the outright cruel Epps side by side and asks “Is one really worse than the other?” Lupita Nyong’o has been considered the film’s breakout star for her turn as Patsey, every bit as much the hero as Solomon is. Producer Brad Pitt’s appearance in the film is brief, a good thing since he would probably be distracting if he was in it for any longer.



At a press junket, director McQueen said “the only reason I’m here, because… people suffered and died for my freedom, and therefore, I cannot pull punches on them. It would be a disservice to them. It would be a disservice to Solomon.” And indeed, no punches are pulled in this searingly affecting biopic, Ejiofor conveying the profound agony of a man so deeply wronged. Hans Zimmer’s score lifts all too liberally from his earlier work for Inception, but that is but a small nit to pick and an insignificant complaint when measured against the thought-provoking, eye-opening and immensely powerful whole that is 12 Years a Slave.

SUMMARY: 12 Years a Slave is not easy viewing but then again, it shouldn’t be. Director Steve McQueen and a strong cast ensure Solomon Northup’s story is given the full weight and respect it deserves.

RATING: 4.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

Salt

Movie Review                                                                                                             9/8/10

SALT

2010

Starring: Angelina Jolie, Liev Schreiber, Chiwetel Ejiofor

Directed by: Phillip Noyce

Released by: Columbia Pictures

Two groups of people think the Cold War is not over: conspiracy theorists and Hollywood. The Cold War provided a wealth of tales for filmmakers to spin, and the latest in this line is Salt, which uses the popular Cold War myth of Russian sleeper agents brainwashed as children and implanted in the United States, waiting to strike.

            The film opens with CIA operative Evelyn Salt (Jolie) being tortured in a North Korean prison. Her boyfriend Mike Krause (August Diehl) cooperates with the CIA to negotiate her release through a prisoner exchange.

            Two years later, Salt is happily married to Krause and is planning their anniversary celebration. In walks Orlov (Daniel Olbrychski), a supposed Russian defector and former power player in the Soviet government. He offers Salt the information that a sleeper agent of the former Soviet state will assassinate the current Russian president, Boris Matveyev (Olek Krupa), at the funeral of the American vice-president.

The problem? Orlov states that the agent is Salt herself.

Ted Winter (Schreiber), Salt’s friend and colleague at the CIA is sceptical about Salt really being a Russian spy. However, Peabody (Ejiofor), another fellow agent, is certain that Salt’s allegiance lies with the Soviet Union and that she will kick-start a war between the US and Russia with the murder of the Russian President. The two form an uneasy alliance hunting down the woman they thought was their ally.

This sends a desperate Salt on the run, jumping off the tops of vehicles, hanging off the ledges of apartment buildings, knocking people out with spider venom, crawling through the sewers of New York and so on, leading to a climax in the Presidential bunker beneath the White House.

In many ways, Salt is a textbook spy action-thriller, but unlike most textbooks, is one I would not mind reading again. Director Noyce is a master of the genre, having helmed Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger, both starring Harrison Ford.

However, much unlike those films, Salt borders on the fantastical and owes its existence more to other spy franchises than Tom Clancy novels. For example, the North Korean sequence is straight out of Die Another Day, and at one point Orlov uses a shoe with a hidden switchblade as a weapon, ala Rosa Klebb in From Russia With Love. Salt on the run from her superiors and coming to terms with her true identity, whatever it may be, is reminiscent of the Jason Bourne films, and Salt’s disguises-including dyeing her hair from blonde to black-brings to mind the television series Alias, starring Jennifer Garner.

What sets the film apart from scores of similar movies is its star, Angelina Jolie. The film was originally written for a male lead, with Tom Cruise attached to it at one point, but this reviewer is glad that Jolie got the part in the end. Cruise was right when he said the role was too similar to that from his Mission: Impossible movies.

The audience is meant to doubt where Salt’s loyalties lie at times, but they never stop rooting for her. It is also great to see Jolie back in her element kicking butt, like she did as action girls in fan-favourites Wanted and the Tomb Raider films. Especially impressive is that most of the stunts were performed by the actress herself. Jumping off a bridge onto a moving semi-truck probably wasn’t one of them, though.

The supporting cast is more than decent. Schreiber does a good job as someone who appears truly sympathetic of Salt’s plight and ready to defend his friend. Because Ejiofor’s character spends most of the film hunting down our hero though, his character is more unlikeable. He even punches Salt at one point.

Orbrychski oozes untrustworthiness as designated villain Orlov, playing the stereotype of the Russian general to a T without overly hamming it up. Diehl is also good as the nice guy husband, in a reversal of roles from that of typical spy films. However, Hunt Block as the US President has only one expression, that of wide-eyed shock and confusion, and is never really believable as the leader of the free world.

The action sequences in Salt keep the film at a brisk pace. While it’s nothing we haven’t seen before, it does stretch the imagination. Salt appears to be made out of a much harder rock than her namesake, bouncing off vans and trucks and jumping down elevator shafts. Evelyn Salt is a veritable one-woman Special Forces unit, but that is arguably part of the fun.

Mention must also be given to the score by James Newton-Howard, which is perfect action movie music, complete with rhythmic percussion, stirring strings and blaring horns. It manages to be kinetic at times and ominous at others.

Unfortunately, the movie is weighed down by an ending that is utterly preposterous and implausible, even in another universe and one that will have everyone going “what the hell?!” However, I’ll admit it was really hard to see the twist coming.

Salt is definitely watchable, but it rarely rises above being just that. The movie has no edge, no distinction other than Jolie. Still, you could do far, far worse this summer if you need to kill a couple of hours at the Cineplex. In the end, it’s fun and, after all, a little salt goes a long way to make a bland meal delicious.

RATING: 3.5/5 STARS

By Jedd Jong Yue