Corrupt cops in movies are nothing new. We’ve seen it going back to Serpico, when Al Pacino was up against some very bad people in the New York Police Department, and this has continued through many other films (Brooklyn’s Finest, the Bad Lieutenant movies, The Departed, and Training Day come to mind, though they all vary in scope and how bad the cops are).

Here is an even tighter, darker twist for our current, seemingly terrible times: cops who pull off heists. And I don’t mean simply bumping off some convenience store or knocking down a drug dealer but major bank robberies that involve intense precision and perhaps even some military background for certain officers. Does it make for an entirely original plot, the grittiness of the filmmaking aside? What about if, say, the Russian mob is involved?

This is the realm of the new film Triple 9, directed by John Hillcoat (of the very dark western The Proposition, the very dark post-apocalypse drama The Road, and the kind of dark prohibition-era crime movie Lawless). One member of the group of thieves appears to be on the outside. He’s not a cop but ex-special operations officer, Michael Atwood (Chiwetel Ejiofor), who is the connection to the Russian-by-way-of-Israeli mob. Why he and his crew pull off the intense bank heist that opens the film—which also includes Aaron Paul and Anthony Mackie—is due to the mob and specifically to ties dating back to Iraq, which we only get inklings of.

Turns out that the latest bank robbery, which almost goes south due to Paul’s strung-out Gabe, isn’t enough for the mob, which is headed by a not unrecognizable but totally sinister Kate Winslet as Irina. She wants her husband out of prison, and so she needs some codes or something else and not simply money this time. How can Michael and the cops pull this off? One of them comes up with the plan: pull a 999, meaning the murder of a police officer, which will buy the crooked cops enough time to hit the jackpot in a special Homeland Security facility. More than that, the target will be a cop who matters to another officer, such as Sergeant Allen (Woody Harrelson), whose nephew (Casey Affleck) is now the partner of Mackie’s character.

The Atlanta setting appears to be a place that is sweaty, very dangerous, and ripe for corruption. For Hillcoat, the location always helps immensely to dictate how his film will unfold, and he takes total advantage of making this a rough, seedy metropolis, mostly seen at the street level, whether it’s in the backyard of a strip club (there’s a cameo with Michael K. Williams that you have to see to believe) or around the gangs living in rundown projects. What sets the film apart from other cynical, bleak cop action-dramas is that Hillcoat likes to emphasize visual details that either make the characters more on edge or all the more at home.

The cast is almost perfect: Affleck as the one good, decent cop; Mackie as the officer who could go either way; Harrelson as the alcoholic and sometimes drug user who is, compared to the other cops, totally straight; and the intense Ejiofor. Clifton Collins Jr. and Norman Reedus are solid character actors who are just a joy to watch acting as sleazy and rotten as possible. I wish the script could have risen to their talents.

The movie is good, with occasional flashes of brilliance, but it also has lapses in logic at a few key moments, and the core of the plot it isn’t too original .The quest for one last heist has been the name of the game for countless crime movies. It’s also a little convenient how the coincidences start piling up in the last act, and Paul seems to be replaying the more dramatic parts of his character from Breaking Bad, only (oddly enough) as a cop. (I wonder how he would have been in the Affleck role).

Triple 9 is a worthwhile and entertaining neo-noir that goes to the limit of what we’ve seen with corrupt cops—how far they’ll go to get whatever they want, regardless (or because of) their positions of power and status. The actors and the direction elevate the material just enough. It’s rough and intense and kind of ugly. The violence is so gruesome you may need to turn away at times. In other words, it’s another button pushing, balls-to-the-wall Hillcoat movie.

Directed by John Hillcoat
Written by Matt Cook
Produced by Keith Redmon, Bard Dorros, Anthony Katagas, Christophe Woodrow, and Hillcoat
Released by Open Road
USA.115 mins. Rated R
With Casey Affleck, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Anthony Mackie, Aaron Paul, Clifton Collins Jr., Norman Reedus, Teresa Palmer, Michael K. Williams, Gal Gadot, Woody Harrelson, and Kate Winslet