John Hillcoat is no stranger to the darkness, but in the new cop thriller Triple 9, he’s adding a great big splash of red.
The director of the post-apocalyptic drama The Road and the violent Australian western The Proposition hits theaters this weekend with a film that works as a serious drama, a film noir and a heist thriller at the same time, and features a knockout cast that includes Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave), Kate Winslet (Steve Jobs), Casey Affleck (Manchester by the Sea), Woody Harrelson (True Detective), Anthony Mackie (Captain America: Civil War), Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad), Gal Gadot (Batman v Superman) and Norman Reedus (The Walking Dead). The film is about a group of corrupt cops and ex-paramilitary who are forced to commit an armed robbery for the Russian mob and decide that the best way to cause a distraction is to murder one of their fellow officers.
I talked to John Hillcoat on the phone this week to find out more about Triple 9, from its most exciting imagery to the off-camera rap battles that took place between Anthony Mackie and Hillcoat’s own son. The filmmaker also offers some exciting recommendations for crime and cop movies that you should check out as a double feature with his own new thriller. Enjoy.
Open Road Films
Crave: So there’s no shortage of cop movies or dirty cop movies or heist movies. What was it about Triple 9 that made it so important to bring out into the world?
John Hillcoat: Well, I felt that the moral shades of grey, and the murkiness of Triple 9 was actually refreshing. I hadn’t seen that for quite a while in that genre. I mean, I think this genre has been much more black and white and full of fireworks, as opposed to a more gritty reality, and more matter of fact look at modern day streets of America as they are now.
And yet at the same time, it’s a very plot-driven thriller. It’s not a sightseeing tour of our police and the streets where they live. What’s that like, trying to balance the thrills with the moral murkiness you’re talking about?
I love genre so I’m always trying to find… I love those extreme worlds that genre creates. So with this particular genre, [the] crime thriller, there’s always action and they’re dealing with extreme situations so I wanted to have that action have an energy to it, and a suspense to it, and a dynamic energy to it which is driven by the characters’ choices, and the plot I think unravels by that.
So yeah, I think that there was room to show […] such realism of what the streets are like out there now, and the militarization of the police but also the paramilitary background between the criminal groups that are running the streets now. I think [that] gives it a different energy and more of a grit. So it was a balancing act of taking the classic genre noir elements and adding in a dose of realism.
Open Road Films
The image that the marketing department seems to have glommed onto from Triple 9 is the whole team covered in red paint from a dye pack exploding in the middle of a heist. When you were filming that, when you were concocting that, did you think to yourself, “This is going to be our thing?” Or did it surprise you how big that image has become?
No, I mean again, it was one of those things where in this world, it’s a very familiar world, so that’s why I was always looking for things that we haven’t seen before, and it’s always an element of chaos and unpredictability. One of those things was the fact that, you know, most banks have dye packs hidden in the cash. So I was glad that that image got picked up. There’s something quite visceral and visually interesting about it. Yeah.
Were there earlier drafts of the script in which you made “caught red-handed” jokes after that scene?
[Laughs.] Yeah, and the “blood on the hands.” In this sort of film – on set, sorry, not when we’re rolling cameras – there’s a lot of humor. I think from what I’ve heard, on a comedy set it’s the opposite. The humor is on camera and people are miserable.
What sort of comedy geniuses did you have on the set of Triple 9? Is Chiwetel Ejiofor a rapier wit?
Yeah, there were impromptu rap battles and all sorts of stuff.
Open Road Films
Who rap battled? Who were the contestants?
Actually my son had an ongoing one with Anthony Mackie. Yeah. [Laughs.]
Did your son win?
He won the first round but Mackie finally got him back in the elevator the other night.
“Damn you, Mackie!”
[Laughs.] The first one, Chiwetel was doing the backup percussion work for [my son] the first round, so that maybe that helped give him a little bit of an edge.
You filmed this, and this is going to be on the DVD, right? You did, right…?
The rap battle?
Yeah.
[Thinks.] No, I’m afraid no. Actually that’s not a bad idea. I should pull out the iPhones. These were both impromptu moments.
Ask around.
If I find footage, I don’t know. I’ll have to check that out. Not a bad idea.
Thank you. I will accept a “thank you” in the credits of the DVD.
Okay! [Laughs.]
Open Road Films
You have a really impressive cast in Triple 9. What’s it like balancing that level of talent within the film and on the set, and making sure everyone has the dramatic moment you need to justify casting them in the movie?
Look, they were already so committed to the idea of trying to do things unexpected for themselves, like in terms of what they’re normally [famous for]. An obvious example is Kate Winslet, but even for Casey and Chiwetel, it went into an area that they had never really explored before. So they loved the fact that I wanted to really add all this reality and grit to it, so they did a lot prep for the movie and I think they loved that experience of entering these other worlds.
Because film and these genres, these genres and filmmaking, it’s like getting a passport into all these other worlds. So for the actors, I think they really embraced that and were excited to see the locations. We were filming in locations, despite all the film crews in Atlanta, that no one has filmed in. I think they just appreciated all of that and reacted. And the fact that we had a lot of real… you know, we had gang unit guys there, on-camera. We had ex-gang members, on-camera. So I think that they, when you throw actors like that into the world that we’re trying to create, I think they really appreciate that and get fired up.
How gung ho was Michael Kenneth Williams to play a transvestite? I haven’t seen him do that before…
[Laughs.] Again, that was… you know, he really embraced that and ran with it. We were all so taken by his transformation. I just wish we could have done more. He was working in Atlanta at the time and that helped, and also I had a great experience with him on The Road as well. Yeah. Look, these guys are just all real professionals and they love challenges, you know?
Open Road Films
You talked several times about your love of genre, so I’m curious: beyond some of the more obvious choices in this particular genre – films like Heat, for example – what are some of your favorite cop-slash-heist movies that people can check out after they checked out Triple 9?
Well, I’m a big fan of A Prophet, which was more about crime. Not so many corrupt cops. […] But in terms of corrupt cops, for me, Prince of the City, the Sidney Lumet film, I think it’s one of the best, I’m sure, and it majorly inspired a lot of the people behind The Wire. And The Wire is a great show because it has the room to flesh out all those characters’ lives, and the reality of the streets in America. And also just, I know it’s obviously, but The French Connection. That kind of grit of The French Connection. And film noirs, the murkiness and the twists and turns where no one is who they appear to be, was also quite a big influence.
I gotta ask: where do you stand on The French Connection II?
[Laughs.] Yeah, that had its moments, definitely.
I’m a fan, I like it.
Yup. Same here. I am. And oh, I could go on. Gomorrah, the Italian crime movie, was amazing. Yeah. I’ll stop there. I don’t want to overload you.
Top Photo: Open Road Films
William Bibbiani (everyone calls him ‘Bibbs’) is Crave’s film content editor and critic. You can hear him every week on The B-Movies Podcast and watch him on the weekly YouTube series Most Craved and What the Flick. Follow his rantings on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
