FILM: Triple 9 
CAST: Casey Affleck, Kate Winslet, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Anthony Mackie
DIRECTION: John Hillcoat


This is a tough crime thriller that falls between the two quality extremes. It is the tale of a gang of corrupt police officers led by Special Forces ace Michael Atwood (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and other officers who pull off a heist and the latter are blackmailed by Russian mobsters to carry out their nefarious plans. 
How they plan to eliminate their colleague Chris Allen (Casey Affleck) in order to buy themselves time to pull off their next heist, forms the crux of the tale.
The other members of the team are Russell Welch (Norman Reedus) and his brother Gabe (Aaron Paul), along with Marcus Belmont (Anthony Mackie) and Franco Rodriguez (Clifton Collins, Jr.)
The narration begins with a successful bank heist, full of telling details and arresting images till matters get out of control and a red flare goes off inside a getaway car. After that everything goes downhill.
The plot weaves a tangled web among the Russian mobsters, dirty-dealing detectives, a police officer who wants to make a difference and everybody caught in the crossfire. But they do not leave an impression, as screenwriter Matt Cook fails to make any of these characters strike a chord with the viewer.
And whether these characters live, get rich, or die trying to succeed in their motive, matters little by the second act, as the plot runs out of momentum. In the last act, just at the point when the focus should intensify, the narration wobbles almost to a halt.
Despite an exhaustive ensemble cast and a rich premise, Triple 9 fails to ignite the screen.
For the uninitiated, Triple 9 is the US police code which means, “Urgent help needed, Officer gunned down”. — IANS




A mishmash of genres


By Troy Ribeiro 




FILM: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies 
CAST: Lily James, Sam Riley, Lena Headey, Jack Huston, Charles Dance
DIRECTION: Burr Steers 


Based on Seth Grahame-Smith’s novel of the same name, this horror film retells Jane Austen’s classic tale of manners. It reveals the tangled relationships between lovers from different social classes in 19th century England, albeit with a twist that involves zombies.
At the very onset, we are informed by a voice-over that Britain has turned into a horror zone with zombies living in close proximity to humans. To protect themselves the humans are holed up within the walled city of London and have relegated the zombies to the “In-Between”, an area outside of the walled-in city but inside a royal moat.
In the Bennet household, the sisters Elizabeth (Lily James), Jane (Bella Heathcote), Kitty (Suki Waterhouse), Lydia (Ellie Bamber), and Mary (Millie Brady) are all trained in the art of weaponry and martial arts. Their mother, Mrs Bennet (Sally Phillips) is worried about their future as she wants them to be married off to wealthy suitors.
The suitors include Colonel Darcy (Sam Riley), an investigator who slays newly infected zombies; his close friend Mr Bingley (Douglas Booth), who is the Bennet’s new neighbour; Mr Collins (Matt Smith), the girl’s cousin who is a pastor; and Mr Wickham (Jack Huston), a charming soldier.
How the girls, with their pride, prejudices and daggers in their garters, navigate through the treacherous paths of marriage proposals, forms the crux of the film.
Director Burr Steers’ script seems unsure of the plot. Though he ensures the action sequences are as sharp as the wits quotient, he fails to leave an impact. In fact, the plot shuffles between action, horror and romance in a much unfocused manner, not doing justice to any one genre in particular.
On the performance front, Lily James as the spunky and spirited Elizabeth steals the show. She captures the essence of the agile, alert Elizabeth’s personality along with her fighting skills with great ease. She is the only character you feel for.
Bella Heathcote as Jane is pleasant in a short role and the rest of the sisters in one dimensional roles are all wasted.
But overall you keep wondering why anyone would want to retell a classic and ruin the charm of the original tale. — IANS


Clueless plot




FILM: Solace 
CAST: Anthony Hopkins, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Abbie Cornish, Colin Farrell, Matt Gerald
DIRECTION: Afonso Poyart


FBI Agents Merriwether (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and Cowles (Abbie Cornish) are on the trail of a serial killer but the murderer is proving a tough nut to crack with no clues left behind and not much connecting his selection of victims. 
However, Merriwether has a colleague who used to be a valuable member of his investigating team, a psychic named John Clancy (Anthony Hopkins), though he has become a recluse since his daughter died of cancer. Can he be coaxed back to work? That’s what the agents hope, so drive out to Clancy’s house in the country to speak to him face to face, for if anyone can find out the identity of the murderer, it is him...
It’s often a bad sign when a film is moved to explain its title with a short paragraph at the beginning, not so bad if that title is something obscure, but the word solace was not exactly from an ancient language. But here we were, asked to believe that one of Wales’ greatest actors was an FBI psychic, a position that doesn’t exist because, well, because no case has ever been solved with the help of a clairvoyant and any supposed evidence to the contrary would be laughed out of court. 
With its horror inflections, Solace was closer to something like The Cell, though not as ornate, and Hopkins barely altered his expression throughout the whole performance, perhaps to indicate the loneliness of the long-distance mind reader, or perhaps because he was getting confused about what he was meant to be doing. — GC


DVDs courtesy: 
Saqr Entertainment Stores, Doha