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Dirty-cop drama ‘Triple 9’ squanders cast’s considerable talents

The cast of the crooked-cop drama “Triple 9” boasts an Oscar winner and three other nominees, a three-time Emmy winner and an additional nominee, an Avenger, a member of the Justice League and the breakout star of “The Walking Dead.”

The lesson? Everybody has bills to pay.

You rarely know how an actor ends up in a particular role or movie. Bill Murray has said he signed on to voice Garfield without reading that movie’s script because he mistook its writer, Joel Cohen of the “Cheaper By the Dozen” remake, for Joel Coen of the Coen brothers.

There’s no telling whom Kate Winslet mistook “Triple 9’s” first-time screenwriter Matt Cook for.

The Oscar winner and current nominee for her role in “Steve Jobs” portrays Atlanta-based Russian-Israeli mob boss Irina Vlaslov. Ex-Special Forces soldier Michael Atwood (“12 Years a Slave” Oscar nominee Chiwetel Ejiofor) has a son with Irina’s sister Elena (Gal Gadot, “Wonder Woman”). And Irina is using him to assemble a team to steal information that will get her husband released from a Russian prison.

That team is made up of wheelman Russell (Norman Reedus, “The Walking Dead”) and his junkie, ex-cop brother, Gabe (“Breaking Bad” Emmy winner Aaron Paul), as well as Atlanta gang-unit officer Marcus Belmont (Anthony Mackie, Marvel’s Falcon) and Det. Franco Rodriguez (Clifton Collins Jr., an Emmy nominee for ABC’s “American Crime”).

After they pull off a high-profile bank robbery just to acquire the contents of a single safe deposit box, Irina withholds their payment and demands they retrieve files from an unmarked Homeland Security holding facility.

The risks outweigh the rewards, but a series of escalating threats convinces them she’ll have them all killed if they don’t comply. So, to provide enough of a window before the police arrive, the crew sets out to create a massive diversion: a 999, police code for “officer down.”

Marcus, Franco and even poor, broken Gabe know that when one of their own is shot, cops will drop everything to converge on the scene. And Marcus’ new partner, Chris Allen (Oscar nominee Casey Affleck), seems like the perfect target. Not only is he a by-the-book hindrance, his uncle (Oscar nominee Woody Harrelson) oversees the major crimes squad and has enough clout to attract even more officers to the eventual crime scene.

All they have to do is make sure Chris gets shot at just the right time and place.

Describing “Triple 9” makes it sound like a gritty, pulpy thriller. And perhaps that’s why everyone signed on. But, in the hands of director John Hillcoat (“The Road”), the result is little more than a convoluted slog interspersed with plenty of posturing and brief bursts of run-of-the-mill action.

There are so many characters barely being serviced, and some who disappear for so long, you’ll probably have forgotten some of them were there in the first place. (“Oh, hey, Aaron Paul!”)

Winslet, hopefully test-driving an accent for something better down the road, throws subtlety out the window while looking like she’s auditioning for Sharon Stone’s role in a Baltic remake of “Casino.”

She isn’t given much to do, but she still fares better than Gadot, who traipses through a couple of short scenes in even shorter skirts.

Woody Harrelson does Woody Harrelson things, like warning a bank manager to “be careful what you InstaGoogleTweetFace,” and generally making the character more interesting than he surely was in the script. But he could play this part — basically a less-intense variation on his turn in “True Detective” — in his sleep. And there’s little reason to suggest he didn’t.

Affleck returns to theaters a month after he was the most interesting part of the disappointing rescue drama “The Finest Hours.” Here, his low-key charisma distinguishes him from all the surrounding braggadocio. Now if only someone would give him another great showcase the way his brother, Ben, did with “Gone Baby Gone.”

For everyone else involved, here’s hoping “Triple 9” paid off that vacation home or some relative’s college tuition so the talented cast can move on to better projects.

Projects with scripts they actually take the time to read before showing up to work.

Contact Christopher Lawrence at clawrence@reviewjournal.com. On Twitter: @life_onthecouch

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