STACK #137 Mar 2016

CINEMA INTERVIEW

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Queensland-born filmmaker John Hillcoat may not be prolific but his handful of genre features to date have totally immersed us in bleak, authentically realised worlds. Applying his trademark grit to the urban heist thriller TRIPLE 9 involved lots of research, he tells Scott Hocking.

CINEMA

ang on, has it really been four years since Lawless ? Oh my God, are you sure?" asks an exasperated John Hillcoat when I bring up the fact that he seems to

make a movie every four years. “I think you’re right. Wow. Okay, now I’ve really got to do something about this.” Triple 9 is indeed the incredibly selective director’s first film since bootlegger drama Lawless in 2012; a hard-edged urban crime thriller in which the titular police code for “officer down” is used as a diversion by a crew of corrupt cops and ex-Special Forces soldiers in order to pull off an impossible heist for the Russian-Israeli mob. contemporary, urban, energetic, and like a commentary of where America is at right now. Triple 9 helped tick all those boxes – the idea of the 999 code and the rich moral complexity that it threw up was the key.” A 999 call triggers a mass response from the police department, who converge on the location of the downed officer. “I’ve heard of up to 300 police officers showing up after a cop shooting in Atlanta,” “I love genre films and finding a way of reinventing them,” Hillcoat explains. “I’d been itching to do something

MARCH 2016

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