Blurring the thin blue line

Anthony Mackie and Clifton Collins Jr. in "Triple 9." Image courtesy Open Road Films

Most of my time watching the almost entirely forgettable “Triple 9” was spent thinking about the many other better movies I could be watching at the moment. “Deadpool,” after all, was just a theater away, or I could have gone home and put on “Rififi” or “Dog Day Afternoon.” I sat through “Triple 9” anyway, waiting for something unique or noteworthy to occur and hoping beyond hope this thing could contribute something more to society than contrivances, racism and Aaron Paul doing crack once again.

That moment never came though, largely due to a plot dreamed up by a bored Homer Simpson and written by an overeager freshman film major. “Triple 9” opens with a successful bank robbery – because it's always a bank robbery – perpetrated by Paul, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Clifton Collins Jr., Norman Reedus and Anthony Mackie. The big twist? Everybody except Paul and Ejiofor are cops for the Atlanta Police Department pulling the job for Russian mob boss Irina Vlaslov (Kate Winslet pulling out an atrocious Russian accent from a secondary orifice) who happens to be the sister of Ejiofor's ex (Gal Gadot). One job isn't enough though, and the crew is recruited for another heist that will free Winslet's husband from the Gulag or something like that. (It was tough to tell because the dialogue was in Russian and the subtitles were cutoff on the bottom of the screen.) This new job is difficult, as robbing from a Homeland Security building will draw lots of unwanted attention.

Unless, that is, someone kills a cop – a titular code 999 – which will distract every officer in the area. And who better to murder than Mackie's new annoying partner Chris Allen (Casey Affleck), nephew of daffy but well-regarded investigator Jeffrey Allen (Woody Harrelson), who happens to be investigating that first heist. Mackie and company come up with a plan to slaughter Affleck for their own means, but the best laid plans in such films never work out so well, and things start to fall apart from there amid shenanigans involving Latino gangs, booze and women filled with malice.

In other words, pretty much the general plot of most heist films stuffed into less than two hours of run time, even though director John Hillcoat and writer Matt Cook clearly need more time to establish characters and coordinate plot machinations. “Triple 9” is far too short for it's ambitions – it feels like someone slashed off 15 minutes or so indiscriminately – although it still somehow lasts too long after the second heist when all the loose ends have to be wrapped up. One of the worst places a film can be is in that zone of being too long and too short, and “Triple 9” finds itself right smack dab in the middle of the dull zone. Then again, a longer film would mean having to watch even more of “Triple 9,” which isn't a very exciting proposition. It's not a visually stunning movie nor a particularly well executed one when it comes to its action sequences, most of which are filmed in a workmanlike fashion with little to no ownership. Even the moments theoretically meant to invoke suspense come off as funny and light instead of serious; the audience literally laughed at what was clearly the point of greatest tension of the entire movie.

None of this would be overly bothersome; forgettable films come and go like the tides or the next great presidential candidate. What makes “Triple 9” stand out though is a discomfiting vein of racism directed toward its Hispanic characters. Hillcoat and Cook go out of their way to establish a backstory for just about every character to offer some justification for their actions; it’s the main reasons why the plot is so overstuffed. Ejiofor has a kid he's trying to see again, Mackie is torn between loyalty to his partner and his comrades, and Paul is mourning for much of the film. Clifton, the lone Hispanic member of this group, is a remorseless killer though, a very bad man whose motivations are rooted solely in dollars and self preservation. He's an extension of the way the filmmakers portray the Hispanic community, a group that in this film is violent, uneducated, crude, cruel, slightly atavistic, and borderline subhuman. “Triple 9” is a film built to justify white people's fear of Hispanic communities, which is such a weird angle for a film otherwise devoted to themes of loyalty and moral quagmires.

It's that aspect that shoves “Triple 9” into the problematic realm, a film unwilling to shake clichés both damaging and useless because they might look cool. It tries ever so hard to be smart, to be a head spinner on par with a Tony Gilroy flick. But as “Triple 9” proves, trying too hard to be smart really makes you look pretty dumb.

Review: One and a half out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: R

Run time: 115 minutes (One hour and 55 minutes)

Genre: Drama

Ask Away

Target audience: People who want an unnecessarily convoluted cop flick.

Take the whole family?: A ton of dudes get shot in the head in this one, so stick with the rating suggestion and send your kids to “Zootopia” next week.

Theater or Netflix?: Stream it.

Who do you want to win the Academy Awards?: Brie Larson for “Room” and Rooney Mara for “Carol” would be terrific choices for Best Actress and Supporting Actress, respectively. On the male side, Leonardo DiCaprio is the best choice from the options granted, while I'd really like Mark Ruffalo to win for “Spotlight.” If I had my druthers, George Miller would win for directing and “Mad Max: Fury Road” for Best Picture, although neither will probably occur.

Watch this instead?: Considering “Triple 9” tries to be a cop film and a heist film, recommending from both genres makes sense. Both “Bad Lieutenant” and “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans” are fascinating films for the former category, while “Inside Job” (also starring Chiwetel Ejiofor) and “Asphalt Jungle” are terrific heist films.

One last game, for old times' sake

Jennifer Lawrence stars in "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2." Image courtesy Lionsgate

“Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2” leaves a mildly bitter taste on the tongue immediately after viewing, a sensation linked directly to the middling dialogue and a silly ending in the same vein as the last few moments of the “Harry Potter” finale a few years back. Yet for a film targeted at a young demographic, it has a pretty excellent stew-quality to it; mulling it over for a night or so results in a hint more respect for it than the initial impression leaves. It's still not great and a bit of a letdown for a series that hasn't had a below-par movie, but it deserves brownie points for thematic depth and emotional heaviness despite its frequent trips into camp territory.

“Mockingjay” kicks off right after the conclusion of the first part, with heroine Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) recovering after she is strangled by brainwashed romantic interest Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson). The scene itself features poor Lawrence attempting to speak with bruise marks still on her throat, an idea that sounds strong on paper but is a better vehicle for unintentional laughter than emotional resonance.

Nevertheless, Lawrence is quite peeved by what happened to her (possibly) beloved Hutcherson, and she hatches a plan to assassinate the evil President Snow (a ridiculous, over the top Donald Sutherland) for revenge. Her mission comes against the wishes of steely rebel leader Alma Coin (Julianne Moore) and the mysterious Pluutarch (a dearly missed Philip Seymour Hoffman), but she sneaks her way to the front lines of the war anyway and she joins her other beloved, Gail Hawthorne (Liam Hemsworth). Both are placed on a special squad for the rebels' invasion of the capitol, along with Hutcherson, the charming Finnick Odair (Sam Claflin) and squad leader Boggs (Mahershala Ali), to film propaganda pieces and strike fear into the hearts of the Capitol. A relatively safe mission goes awry thanks to Sutherland's idea of turning the city streets into yet another round of Hunger Games, forcing Lawrence and her team to fight for their lives as they march toward Sutherland's mansion. Woody Harrelson pops in and out as Lawrence’s mentor Haymitch Abernathy to offer token bits of wisdom, while Jeffrey Wright, Jena Malone, Elizabeth Banks, Willow Shields and Stanley Tucci return to their respective roles to pad out the runtime for a few moments.

A film as long as “Mockingjay” shouldn’t need the padding, and the two-plus hour movie often feels much longer than that. The film is slowed down by scenes that add little to nothing to the narrative flow, except to try and justify splitting the third book in Suzanne Collins' popular young adult series into two films. It never quite works, and the result is two OK films with far too much fat instead of one pretty good that's three hours long but comparably lean to the four-and-a-half hours combined length of these two flicks.

So what do viewers get with the extra time with Katniss and her friends? A fair amount of relationship drama – the weakest part of the series by far, although Malone's character provides a nice meta jab at its inanity – and really miserable dialogue that provide more of that unintentional humor mentioned earlier. Audience members are blessed too with lazy writing tricks – Sutherland's Snow employs the blood in the handkerchief trope – and a few scenes of Lawrence looking confounded. Lawrence is more often than not a terrific actress, but “Mockingjay” brings out the worst in her. She’s horridly entertaining in her two big emotional scenes; then again, she is reacting to an especially bored cat and an disengaged baby.

It takes more digging than it should to get past the annoyances, but there is something worthwhile within “Mockingjay's” heart. It's a morally complex film, with the idea of doing the right thing often a pipe dream given the realities of war. War is a dirty contest in this film, a fact represented by the amount of grime and sewage contestants have to wade through to fight, and it becomes even messier when the characters debate exactly how far they are willing to go to win. Even Lawrence's Katniss, who state emphatically her moral boundaries during wartime, finds it difficult to stick with that moral rigidity when the opportunity for revenge arises.

So do the ends justify the means? Not quite in “Mockingjay,” as the film acknowledges there is at least one major line – eerily reminiscent of the attacks in Paris last week – that should not be crossed. It's a brutal scene carried over from the source material and presented with striking simplicity by the filmmakers, and it turns what is a dark series into an absolute horror. It's a moment that emphasizes the hopelessness of the war and Lawrence's quest; people who fight evil never leave the fight as pure as they entered it.

Review: Three out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: PG-13

Run time: 137 minutes (Two hours and 17 minutes)

Genre: Action

Ask Away

Target audience: Teen girls and fans of the either the books or the rest of the film series.

Take the whole family?: Kids will get turned off a bit by the explosions and a rather horrifying plot twist, so keep children younger than 10 at home.

Theater or Netflix?: Probably could wait until its available on home viewing, but stick with matinee if opting to see it on a large screen.

Is Jennifer Lawrence worth the money?: Lawrence, who will apparently make $20 million for her upcoming film “Passengers,” has more than justified an increase in pay. Even if her acting isn't up to her own standards in this one, she's still the face of a major box-office film series, and she is a leading figure in the “X-Men” series to boot. The star system is overrated for sure, but Lawrence has earned that money based on the rules of the game.

Watch this as well?: “Catching Fire” is the best individual entry in the series – Philip Seymour Hoffman is great, and the action is much tighter than the rest of the series. Similarly, check out the third “Harry Potter” film, “The Prisoner of Azkaban,” which is by far the best in that series and is a terrific standalone film.