Typically when the weekend of the Oscars comes around, studios tend to release films they don’t have great faith in, whether it be critically or financially. With moviegoers doing their last minute catch-up with the Oscar-nominated films, newer releases held on this weekend almost always silently brush past audiences without attracting much attention. There could not be a better example of that archetypal film than with Open Road’s Triple 9.

Sneaking into theaters Feb. 26, this procedural takes place on the grimey streets of Atlanta where a gang of bank robbers, Michael (Chiwetel Ejiofor), Russel (Norman Reedus), Marcus (Anthony Mackie), Jorge (Clifton Collins Jr.) and Gabe (Aaron Paul) have just executed a massive heist. For Michael, the heist was for personal matters, as the money was to be deposited to the Russian-Jewish Mafia, led by mob boss Irina (Kate Winslet), whose sister Elena (Gal Gadot) has a child with Michael.

He believes this will be the final job given to his crew by Irina before she assigns them one last hit involving breaking into a Department of Homeland Security Facility, a seemingly impossible task. The crew decides the best way to approach the matter would be to pull a “triple-nine,” which is code for “officer down.” By using this method as a means of distraction, the crew is confident that this will be yet another mission accomplished.

Through his ties with the police force, Marcus declares his new partner Chris (Casey Affleck), who is unfamiliar with a division as tough as this, to be their 999 victim. With his alcoholic uncle (Woody Harrelson), a detective himself, keeping a close eye on him, Chris begins to venture into a territory that is rougher and darker that he had ever imagined.

Most of the cast here is good with they have to work with: a dominantly generic screenplay Matt Cook, in his feature debut, that varies from being either predictable or simply inane. But due to the over abundance of these A-list stars, their screen time is highly limited and some of them just aren’t given enough time to flesh themselves out. Winslet, however, is just unashamedly hamming it up from scene to scene, sporting a ridiculous accent and drenched with superfluous amounts of makeup. She seems to be having fun at times with the over-the-top nature of the character, but that also makes it hard to be threatened since she is particularly silly.

Director John Hillcoat (Lawless) stages some decent action sequences, especially one towards the beginning, and composers Bobby Krlic, Atticus Ross, Leopold Ross and Claudia Sarne deliver a pulse-pounding soundtrack that effectively amplifies the tension at hand. But a couple decent moments of suspense aren’t enough to pull the film out of its gratuitously grim tone. It’s hard to find a truly likable character among the ensemble, which wouldn’t be a problem if there was someone, at the very least, to root for. Affleck is the good guy, sure, but that doesn’t necessarily make it easy to latch onto him. The overall atmosphere ends up being quite dull and confusing as a result of this. Even the ending doesn’t really know whether it is supposed to be a moment of triumphant relief or dark consequence.

There are definitely the right pieces here to make a decent good-cop-bad-cop thriller, and some of those pieces do work, but there are so many others that don’t fit and drag the film down. What could’ve been a relentlessly tense crime drama ends up being a pointlessly extensive game of Cops and Robbers with no real stakes and no real payoff.