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 Dressmaker

For F*** Magazine

THE DRESSMAKER

Director : Jocelyn Moorhouse

Cast : Kate Winslet, Judy Davis, Liam Hemsworth, Hugo Weaving, Sarah Snook, Caroline Goodall, Kerry Fox, Sacha Horler

Genre : Drama

Run Time : 119 mins

Opens : 28 January 2016

Rating : PG13 (Some Coarse Language and Some Sexual References)

Revenge never goes out style in this dark comedy-drama. It is 1951 and after a long absence, Mrytle “Tilly” Dunnage returns to her hometown of Dungatar in the Australian outback to care for her ailing mother Molly (Davis). Tilly was accused of murder at the age of 10 and was exiled from the town. In the intervening years, she has become an expert designer and seamstress, having worked in Europe for high fashion houses such as Balenciaga. Teddy McSwiney (Hemsworth), a childhood friend, goes about romancing Tilly, though all the other residents of Dungatar regard her with suspicion. After Tilly helps general store clerk Gertrude Pratt (Snook) undergo a dramatic makeover, the women of the town become infatuated with Tilly’s couture creations. With the help of flamboyant police Sergeant Horatio Farrat (Weaving), Tilly uncovers the truth behind what happened all those years ago and enacts her vengeance on the townsfolk.

            The Dressmaker is adapted from Rosalie Ham’s 2000 novel of the same name. Director Jocelyn Moorhouse co-wrote the script with her husband P.J. Hogan; a film version seeing the light of day after an earlier attempt in the mid-2000s fell through. A cursory glance at the title or poster might mislead one to believe that this is a run of the mill chick flick. For better or worse (mostly worse), The Dressmaker isn’t. Beneath the surface of immaculately-tailored dresses, an unsettling nastiness is bubbling over and The Dressmaker has quite the caustic edge. It’s a twisted tale of small town revenge that feels more like an askew Western than it does a period countryside romance. Moorhouse herself describes it as “Unforgiven with a sewing machine”.

            The Dressmaker is refreshing in how different it is, but it is also vexingly difficult to place. There are wild tonal inconsistencies: this is a film where a woman trips over a poofy skirt as she tries to keep her fiancé from seeing her in an embarrassing get-up, a policeman drapes himself in pink fabric and traipses about to the Flower Duet from Lakmé and someone’s anterior tibial artery gets severed. Moorhouse’s fearlessness in going full-tilt weird is alternately novel and off-putting. The odd combination of broad slapstick and some shockingly dark moments makes it difficult to get involved in the story, the overall effect vaguely alienating.

            Winslet as Tilly is inspired casting and her performance anchors the sometimes-shaky film that surrounds her. Her turn as an old-school femme fatale with revenge on the brain is pitch-perfect and she has poise to spare as she struts about in an array of striking ensembles created by costume designer Margot Wilson. It is heightened and exaggerated, as the rest of the movie is, but Winslet manages to find some nuance here. Davis is captivating as Tilly’s dementia-addled mother, who seems at first to be little more than a crotchety old lady who’s not altogether there, but eventually emerges as a complex, sympathetic figure. Davis imbues the movie with genuine pathos – there are raw emotional moments which feel out of place given the absurdity of it all, but Davis makes them work.

            Hemsworth fares considerably worse as Teddy, the rugged, dashing farmboy. While he does provide a good amount of eye candy, he’s completely mismatched with Winslet, the burgeoning relationship unconvincing as a result. Teddy is also supposed to be around the same age as Tilly. Hemsworth is 25 and Winslet is 40; it just doesn’t work onscreen. Weaving is quite delightful in a colourful supporting role, his cross-dressing Sergeant Farrat possibly having an even greater penchant for quality women’s wear than Anthony “Tick” Belrose did in Priscilla: Queen of the Desert. A number of Australian actresses including Sarah Snook, Sacha Horler, Alison Whyte and Julia Blake help populate Dungatar with the peculiar people who call the town home.

            The Dressmaker is an odd bird, a costume comedy-drama dipped in acid. Its third act is especially bleak, and that’s when everything comes unstitched. Director Moorhouse brings a great deal of style to the proceedings and this is a distinct approach to the source material, but The Dressmaker is too inconsistent and tonally confused to work.

Summary: While Kate Winslet shines in the title role, The Dressmaker’s peculiar, unpalatable sensibilities make it a poor fit.

RATING: 2.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong 

Steve Jobs

STEVE JOBS 

Director : Danny Boyle
Cast : Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet, Seth Rogen, Jeff Daniels, Michael Stuhlbarg, Katherine Waterston, Perla Haney-Jardine, Ripley Sobo, Makenzie Moss
Genre : Drama
Run time: 122 minutes
Singapore theatrical release currently unscheduled

Director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin take us on a journey to the core of the Apple in this biopic. The film dives into the frantic lead-up to three key product launches during the career of tech entrepreneur Steve Jobs (Fassbender). In 1984, Jobs and marketing executive Joanna Hoffman (Winslet) labour over the demonstration of the Apple Macintosh. In the meantime, Jobs brushes off his ex-girlfriend Chrisann Brennan (Waterston), denying that he fathered Chrisann’s daughter Lisa (Moss, Sobo and Haney-Jardine at different ages). In 1988, Jobs attempts to get the NeXT computer off the ground after being ousted from Apple by CEO John Sculley (Daniels). The final act of the film skips ahead ten years to the unveiling of the iMac in 1998. Across the three segments, we also see Jobs’ interactions with his close collaborator Steve Wozniak (Rogen), member of the original Mac team Andy Hertzfeld (Stuhlbarg) and GQ journalist Joel Pforzheimer (John Ortiz).

            When Aaron Sorkin writes a movie, it’s immediately known as an “Aaron Sorkin movie”, regardless of however prolific the director is. Steve Jobs sees Danny Boyle take on Sorkin’s screenplay, imbuing what could very well be a stage play with considerable vim and verve. Boyle has never shied away from experimenting with style and Steve Jobs’ visual dynamism complements the wit of the script. Boyle and cinematographer Alwin Küchler shot each act in different film formats: 16mm for 1984, 35mm for 1988, and digital for 1998, with the look of each segment reflecting the gradual evolution of Jobs’ own style. Likewise, Daniel Pemberton’s score employs analog synthesisers for the 1984 segment, an orchestra for the 1988 segment and digitally-produced tracks made on an iMac for the 1998 act. There are conscious stylistic choices running through the film which enhance and reinforce the firecracker dialogue to string the three distinct acts into a holistic piece.

Sorkin’s hook is that instead of giving an overview of Jobs’ whole life, the film offers snapshots of it. The clear-cut three act structure (or a symphony in three movements, if one prefers) is a gambit that pays off. While it might be frustrating that only these specific events are given focus and that the film concludes a fair bit before the iPod or iPhone happened, the interpersonal drama is constructed with admirable intricacy. Naturally, Boyle and Sorkin take a considerable amount of artistic license and many of the incidents depicted in the film have been invented out of whole cloth. Sorkin said of the lines he wrote, “If any of them are real, it’s a remarkable coincidence.” However, because of how trippingly on the tongue all that Sorkinese is delivered, there is nary a moment for the audience to sit back and pick apart the inaccuracies.

Fassbender has been garnering deserved Oscar buzz for his portrayal of Jobs. While many leading men that Hollywood has attempted to foist on us in recent years are blandly handsome and lacking in screen presence, Fassbender is the master of magnetism. His lack of physical resemblance to Jobs is compensated by a bravura intensity and confidence which draws the audience in no matter how utterly unlikeable the character gets and how many tantrums he throws. This is a markedly different character from Jesse Eisenberg’s take on Mark Zuckerberg in the earlier Sorkin-penned tech icon biopic The Social Network. Both screenplays are Sorkin pieces through and through, and it is fun to parse the similarities and differences. Despite the sheer strength of Fassbender’s portrayal, this reviewer couldn’t help but imagine what Christian Bale, who was attached to the project in its earliest stages, could have done with the part.

The film quickly establishes that it takes someone with an iron constitution to not only tolerate being around Jobs but to regularly stand up to him, and Winslet conveys exactly this with her portrayal of Joanna Hoffman. Winslet spent time with the real Hoffman to capture her mannerisms and she nails the slight Polish accent – her work with the dialect is better than Fassbender’s.  When she or any other character goes toe-to-toe with Jobs, it’s like watching a sparring match. Rogen has memorably stated that he “won’t ruin your fancy drama” and while the role of Steve Wozniak is not exactly the acting challenge playing Jobs is, Rogen is personable and the ideal counterpoint to Fassbender’s performance. Daniels’ performance as the mentor figure who eventually has a falling out with Jobs has considerable emotional impact in spite of the relatively small size of the role.

Steve Jobs is not a hagiography because its subject is not a saint. It’s not blind hero worship because its subject is not exactly a hero. If anything, several of the real-life figures portrayed in the film have come forward to say Jobs was nicer than written and portrayed in the film. The film does get it across that Jobs was driven and immensely passionate. The opening archival footage of science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke standing in a room occupied by one massive computer from the late 60s as he predicts that personal computers will one day be as ubiquitous as telephones does put Jobs’ vision of a “computer for the rest of us” and Apple’s eventual realisation of said vision in perspective.

            Biographical dramas, particularly those calibrated for awards season consideration, can often be stodgy affairs. Steve Jobs practically cartwheels across the screen – it’s an exhilarating experience and it’s fun to soak in all those quotable, razor-sharp lines and momentarily feel smarter by osmosis. There are certain conflicts that feel a mite overblown and the ending is somewhat schmaltzy in spite of Sorkin’s and Boyle’s best efforts, but Steve Jobs succeeds as an insightful, unconventional character study that is enthralling throughout.

Summary: Factual inaccuracies are smoothed over with mesmerizing performances, electrifying direction and whip-smart storytelling in this unconventional and beautifully crafted biopic.

RATING: 4.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong