Ok, so here’s the deal. I’m in NYC for the summer, but my heart lies in the 518, so I’ll be making numerous treks back on forth via the lovely Amtrak and to fill that 2.5 hour trip I’ll be checking out movies that chances are you haven’t seen. So, to help ya’ll out on your excursions. And also, any movies I reference in terms of what actors have been in are movie I suggest giving a look.
So, for my current trip I peeped the heist thriller, Triple 9. Heist movie? Check, Stacked cast? Check. A handful of holy shit twists? Check. This movie is perfect to get straight up lost in to pass 2 hours in an real quickness.
You’ll soon learn actors I have an affinity for and this movie is littered with them. It features Chiwtel Ejofor (12 Years a Slave, Dirty Pretty Things), Anthony Mackie (Marvel movies, Runner Runner), Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad), Norman Reedus (Walking Dead), and Clifton Collins Jr. as a hodgepodge crew of ex-special ops, an ex cop and current police officers who are working on a tandem of heists for a Russian-Jewish mafia powerhouse in Black Sweden (that’s Atlanta aka Hotlanta for you non-Chidlish Gambino fans).
Then in terms of good guys you’ve got Woody Harrelson (Cheers, True Detective, White Men Can’t Jump, on and on and on) as a nerd-jersey-under-his-suit-jacket wearing salty detective (with weird false teeth) and Casey Affleck (Good Will Hunting, Gone Baby Gone) as as the new guy on the force.
In addition to the show stoppers listed above, you’ve got Kate Winslet (from lots of movies your girlfriend definitely loves and you secretly do) as the wife of a man put in the Gulag by Vladmire Putin and she puts the heist targets in play in attempts to get her husband released into Israeli custody. Oh, yeah and her sister is played by Gal Gadot (Fast & Furious movies, Wonder Woman), who looks positively stunning and plays the baby mama of Chiwetel and serves as the whole reason the crew gets involved.
The primary point of this review is to entice you to watch without giving away. If you aren’t sold already, I don’t know what to tell you because that brief synopsis paired with that cast is reason to watch any movie without knowing a single additional detail.
Pretty much there’s two elaborate crimes intertwined with the side story of Winslet playing the puppeteer holding all the cards and yes, pulling the strings. Unfortunately, the elaborate planning sequences a la Ocean’s 11 are spared to fill the two hours with nonstop action and deceit while sprinkling in some humanizing moments to make you actually care about what goes on.
There is more than one instance of jaw dropping surprise turns that keep you gripped throughout. This isn’t a heist movie that’s going to grab you intellectually like Inside Man and make you wonder if the writers’ themselves are ex-crooks, but in terms of entertainment value this movie is very strong.
Full disclosure these movies are best experienced with a strong drink in hand complimented by a fat lip to wrap things up, but all things considered when it comes to travel this movie should be making your list. All ratings will be dependent on the traveling experience, railway cars are stars and how many drinks necessary to get the most out of this movie are represented by, obviously, beers.
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P.S. If you got all hot and bothered over Jesse Pinkman, let me tell you now, Aaron Paul looks like absolutely shit in this movie, he won’t be getting anybody moist.