Interestingly enough, Open Road decided to put out a red-band trailer for their upcoming John Hillcoat thriller, TRIPLE 9, as the first major piece of advertising for the A-lister-riddled heist flick. So, you get to see some heads pop, innocents get shot at, and a big-teethed, cussy Woody Harrelson (along with a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it shot of Gal Gadot taking her top off…not that I was paying attention).
Given the cast of this thing, which features, among others, Harrelson, Gadot, Casey Affleck, Chiewetel Ejiofor, Normal Reedus, Aaron Paul, Anthony Mackie, and Kate Winslet, I expected a more conventional, less violent nail-biter from the man who directed THE PROPOSITION and THE ROAD. That doesn’t seem to be the case here; this trailer presents an amoral, harsh world, with enough violence, ethical compromise, and endangered innocents to go around.
Another thing I like about this trailer is that it doesn’t give up much of the plot, just that some cops have to do some messed-up stuff for some reason or another, which, frankly, is all we need to know. I have been enjoying Hillcoat’s films progressively less since the terrific THE PROPOSITION, but this looks like it has the potential to be his biggest, most powerful film to date.
And wasn’t it only a matter of time before they got Jesse Pinkman and Daryl Dixon, the two scuzzy bad boys of cable, in the same film. Wonder how many will flock just for that…
TRIPLE 9 reports "officer down" on February 19th, 2016.
