Triple 9 (2016)

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General		Extras
Category	Action	Deleted Scenes-(7:22) Trailer-x 3 for other films
Rating
Year Of Production	2016
Running Time	110:37
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	John Hillcoat
Studio Distributor	Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	Casey Affleck Chiwetel Ejiofor Anthony Mackie Kate Winslet Clifton Collins Jr Aaron Paul Woody Harrelson
Case	?
RPI	?	Music	Atticus Ross Bobby Krlic Claudia Sarne

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English Descriptive Audio Dolby Digital 2.0 (256Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.40:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

     Triple 9 commences in Atlanta, Georgia with five masked men about to rob a bank. They are heavily armed, well organised and very efficient, monitoring the police radio communications and knowing the police response time to the second. They also know precisely what they are after: the contents of a specific safe deposit box. While things do not go exactly to plan in the aftermath of the robbery, they escape with the box. The audience discovers that at least two of the robbers are currently serving police officers and that the robbery was conducted on the instructions of the Russian mafia boss Irina Vlaslov (Kate Winslet).

     The robbers were led by Michael (Chiwetel Ejiofor), while team members Marcus (Anthony Mackie) and Franco (Clifton Collins Jr) are police officers and Gabe (Aaron Paul) is ex-police and a somewhat loose cannon. Michael is ex-Iran security who is connected to Irina as he is divorced from Irina’s sister with whom he has a small son who Irina uses as leverage. So rather than paying the team for the robbery as promised Irina demands they complete one final assignment, and reinforces her demands by killing the final member of the team, Gabe’s brother Russell. The new job is to break into a heavily guarded Homeland Security Complex to steal some information held on discs. The catch is that the team know that they cannot complete the task within the usual police response time. The answer proposed by Franco is to kill a police officer elsewhere in the city and call in a Triple 9 emergency “officer down” which would draw the police response to that site taking precedence over all other emergency calls. The police officer selected is Marcus’s partner Chris (Casey Affleck), who also happens to be the nephew of the detective leading the investigation into the bank robbery, Jeffery Allen (Woody Harrelson). When an informant leads Jeffery to Gabe, the race is on to complete the heist before everything unravels.

     Triple 9 is a tense thriller by Australian director John Hillcoat, who is a very visual director, using landscape powerfully as a character in such films as The Proposition (2005) and The Road (2009). The urban landscape in Triple 9 is equally a character, the scarred streets, deserted buildings and arterial freeways matching the moral decay of the majority of the characters. The sequence when an attempted arrest leads to an intense shootout and a full scale riot on the streets sums up the bleakness and decay within the city.

     Although not quite in the same league, Triple 9 reminds me of Michael Mann’s fabulous Heat with its carefully interlinked characters, family relationships and investigation punctuated by sequences of tension and chaotic, intense violence. Heat is a very hard act to emulate; yet in its own right Triple 9 succeeds in integrating the various characters and plotline with excellent economy, telling us just enough about the back story of the characters to understand their dilemmas and decisions.

     Triple 9 may not be the most original of plots but the film is atmospheric, well-made, tense and exciting, with well-staged loud and chaotic action scenes. Hillcoat also gets solid and believable performances from all his ensemble cast, especially Chiwetel Ejiofor, Anthony Mackie and Casey Affleck, resulting in a compelling film that is well worth a look.

Video

     Triple 9 is presented in the 2.40:1 aspect ratio, close to the original, and is 16x9 enhanced.

     The print is as sharp and detailed as you might expect of a recent film. Colours have a digital glossiness while the yellows of the explosions are intense. The film also includes a number of dark sequences where the blacks and shadow detail are excellent although these scenes often have sections of intense colours with red or yellow lighting. Elsewhere, skin tones are fine and I noticed no marks or artefacts except for some slight flickering during the end credit roll.

     Large white English subtitles for the hearing impaired are available.

     The layer change at 67:07 resulted in a slight pause at a scene change.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

     The feature audio is English Dolby Digital 5.1 at 448 Kbps. Also available is an English audio description track (Dolby Digital 2.0 at 256 Kbps).

     This is a decent enveloping audio track. Dialogue is easy to understand while the surrounds and the rears are frequently in use for the music, engines, gunshots, explosions or hovering helicopters. The sub-woofer added depth to the explosions, shots, engines and the music.

     The score by Bobby Krlic, Leopold Ross, Claudia Sarne and Atticus Ross, who was an Oscar winner for The Social Network (2010), was varied and effective.

    Lip synchronisation was fine.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Start-up Trailers (6:06)

    Trailers for London Has Fallen, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Midnight Special play on start-up. They cannot be selected from the menu.

Deleted Scenes (7:22)

     Four deleted or alternative scenes, one with uncompleted sound. Beware, major spoilers!

     Both the US Region A and our Region B Blu-ray release of Triple 9 have the deleted scenes but add two short (2:43 / 2:41) featurettes which the DVD lacks. I cannot say if these featurettes are on the US DVD but it hardly seems worthwhile importing even if they are.

     With a good cast, complex plotting, stylish visuals and chaotic and intense action sequences Triple 9 is a worthy entry into the crime thriller / action genre.

     The video and audio are good. The extras are minor.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall