Free Fire

As I write this, I'm really struggling to evaluate whether the latest film of Ben Wheatley ("High Rise") is a masterpiece or just pulp trash. It's certainly a brave and highly distinctive venture, with that you can't argue.

Set in Boston in 1978, an arms deal is going down in a deserted warehouse. Brokered by Justine (Brie Larson, "Room") an IRA team headed by Frank (Michael Smiley, "The World's End") with his business guy Chris (Cillian Murphy, "Inception", "Batman Begins") are on the buying side. As 'roadies' they've brought with them a couple of crack- head friends Stevo (Sam Riley, "Brighton Rock", "Maleficent") and Bernie (Enzo Cilenti, "The Martian") who are far from stable.

On the selling side is South African dealer and "international a-hole" Vern (Sharlto Copley, "Elysium"), his suave and wisecracking protector Ord (Arnie Hammer, "The Man From Uncle") and Vern's right hand man Martin (Babou Ceesay, "Eye in the Sky"). What connects all of these individuals is that no-one likes or trusts anyone else.

Unfortunately, one of Vern's van drivers is John Denver-lover Harry (the excellent Jack Treynor, "Sing Street") who has very recent personal history with Stevo. The fuse is lit, and when the two meet chaos ensues: in the words of Anchorman's Ron Burgundy, "That escalated quickly"!

And, for a 90 minute film, that's basically it. If you think after viewing the trailer "there must be more to the film than this".... you're wrong!

However, what there is of it is enormously entertaining. Played ostensibly for laughs, with very very black humour and an F-word and a gunshot in every other sentence, some of the characters – notably those played by Sharlto Copley, Armie Hammer and Brie Larson – have some hilarious dialogue. The star turn for me though was Jack Treynor who was just so impressive as the 'lost at sea' brother in the delightful "Sing Street" and here delivers a stand-out performance as another brother on a mission... this time a mission of vengeance. You are waiting throughout the film for the inevitable showdown between Harry and Stevo - - and when it comes it is both bloody and memorable.

A cracking 70' soundtrack, put together by the Portishead duo of Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury, involves 70's classics by Credence Clearwater Revival, John Denver and The Real Kids and it's hammered out at top volume over the action. The downside of this effect is that - for my old ears at least - it sometimes make some of the dialogue hard to follow.

As a policing exercise, the film clearly has merit. In the same manner as Schwarzenegger's "Running Man" put criminals in an arena to cull them, so this must have reduced the crime rates in both Boston and Belfast no end! While some may not approve of the levels of violence on show, it is all done in a highly cartoonish way: like a "Tom and Jerry" cartoon, or "Home Alone", everyone seems to get shot multiple times and yet (in the main) is still active and mobile. All of this makes criticism of the performances something of a waste of time, but I would comment that some of the acting is of the "over the top" variety: surprisingly, I found some of Oscar winner Brie Larson's scenes falling into this category and snapping me out of the narrative at times.

But overall, my evaluation is now done and I am rooting on the side of it being a brash and exhilarating minor masterpiece. Yes, it's one- dimensional. Yes, it is virtually impossible to feel any empathy with any of the characters, as they are all universally loathsome. But it's a movie whose flaws are forgivable based on the characterisation and the cracking good script by long-term collaborators Ben Wheatley and Amy Jump.

Tight as it is within its 90 minute running time, I doubt you will be bored.

(For the graphical version of this review, please visit bob-the-movie- man.com. Thanks).

By no means an "important" movie, but a good way to kill a Thursday afternoon in an empty theater. "Free Fire" makes no pretense at anything other than a sustained warehouse shootout intermixed with snatches of dialogue (snarky banter for the most part). Its cast of reprobates in gaudy '70s wear is really what makes this fun (in particular the foxy Brie Larson, and both Armie Hammer and Sharlto Copley providing yuks).

I really did grow to like these people (some more so) and that helps when the whizzing bullets start to lose their appeal (I say that as an ardent admirer of cinematic gun-play); enough so that the loss of one character was a real disappointment. We never got to hear the John Denver story!

7/10

I have never written a review on IMDb, but I decided to because I was so annoyed while watching this movie last night after reading the featured glowing user review.

I don't need a fantastic action movie to make me happy. I just need a good movie. Drama, thriller, comedy, action, you name it: so long as it's good.

This movie is only slightly above average. It failed to make me care about any of the characters, and I'd probably need two hands to count the number of times I sat in the theater thinking to myself "pick up the pace!", "Hurry up!", "oh, they missed AGAIN?", and "WHEN is something going to HAPPEN?"

I honestly went in quite excited for a quirky, norm-defying flick based around the interactions of several characters. You have a star- studded cast: Cilian Murphy, Brie Larson, Sharlto Copley; it will be DECENT at least, right?

No. The characters have no depth. The actors play their characters well, but it doesn't feel like these are people that could actually exist. It just feels like you're looking at a drawing an artist put together of imaginary characters, who only exist on that paper. Most of the time the characters simply yell at each other from different positions in the room and then fire shots that fail to hit anything from their seemingly endless reserves of ammo. If they're gun dealers/criminals, why can't they shoot? Why do they fire with wild abandon instead of aiming?

Even the setup for the situation is illogical, which is another thing that irritated me. No one can accomplish anything unless it serves the plot. Everyone can fire bullets everywhere BUT their target, until it serves the plot. It's exasperating.

If you're a fan of movies which are paced far too slow, leave obvious logical holes in order to advance the plot, have exasperatingly stupid and drawn-out gunfights, and leave you feeling unfulfilled, irritated, and wondering why you wasted 90 minutes of your time when you could have been watching something better, this is the movie for you. If not, then avoid it.

Free Fire starts off well. Music is amazing and it gets you excited about the movie, and the dialogue works amazingly well. It's the perfect kind of dialogue. If you're an aspiring screenwriter it might make you think oh right, that's how you're supposed to do it.

The beginning may feel a bit stretched out, but when s##t hit the fan, I almost started to miss that slow, dialogue-heavy beginning of the movie. Mostly because after that, most of the movie seemed more like just shooting without any kind of actual point to it. It desperately needs something more story driven there.

The entirety reminds me of Reservoir Dogs, but like a weird, simpler version missing the charm Tarantino put in his work - apart from the dialogue of course. The set-up is good, but the story isn't close to as great as it could be. There's so much potential that seems to be wasted since it comes to the weird part where the film is mostly shooting and throwing in bits of great dialogue every here and there. It's hard to keep track of, especially when most of the characters look the same and the names are thrown in there so casually you barely remember three of them. Also the structure makes the movie feel way longer than it is.

Free Fire has potential, but it needs some better way to wrap things up, and better way to keep the audience invested in the characters. This way it's just watching and wondering who's going down next and what the hell is even happening.

Free Fire is unfortunately Ben Wheatley's first misfire. Whilst the film isn't terrible by any stretch of the imagination, it does have a-lot of issues. Firstly the overall concept is an interesting idea. A 90 minute shoot-out in a single location sounds like a great idea. And for the first 30-40 minutes the film was highly entertaining. But when a character asks another "how long has it been" you know the film is starting to wear thin.

The film is loaded with an extremely talented cast featuring Cillian Murphy, Brie Larson, Sharlto Copley, Michael Smiley. They all give boisterous, lively performances but their characters are paper thin. For the type of film this is I didn't need any character background, but a little bit of development and growth would've given the film a little more direction.

One of the biggest issues I had with the film was that it meandered for the majority of the second half. This caused me to lose interest in the film as the overall intensity dropped. Another issue I had was the tone of the film, whilst it does have some good moments of levity, the film played itself far too straight. Going in I has expecting and action film with plenty of moments of dark humour, but that was few and far between. And a-lot of the jokes didn't land for me.

Free Fire was an over-all disappointment made even more-so by the fact I'm a huge fan of Ben Wheatley. In the end Free Fire was an interesting experiment that seemed better in concept rather than in its execution.