Free Fire

This is a rather light but exciting mix of action and comedy. There are a few very believable characters and a couple that get a bit too one dimensional and that's where it lets viewers down. The ending is a little predictable, but some of the scenes extremely memorable. This isn't going to make the top films every made, but if you have a couple hours this movie is well worth watching. Warning this IS a movie that is pretty much an hour and a half long shootout. So if you are squeamish about gunfights this is probably not the movie for you.

In 1970s Boston a contingent of IRA men schedule a meeting with arms sellers in a derelict factory only to become embroiled in an argument that finishes in a shoot-out

One constantly thinks that director Ben Wheatley is on the brink of great things. With FREE FIRE you might have thought he'd hit the international target. Set in America ( Though amazingly it's shot in Brighton. England ) and classed as a blackly comical thriller in the style of Tarantino you'd have thought it might have done better at the box office but fails slightly on two levels

Firstly Tarantino is a brand name and unless your name is Quentin Tarantino it's a mistake with hindsight to emulate this style of film making because you're just going to slip in to parody. In fact even Tarantino parodies Quentin Tarantino these days with very mediocre results. You want to pitch a film ? Then please don't use the initials QT

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Secondly there's very little story at all . I was very surprised as to how soon things kicked off. I was expecting an hour of insults and plot turns involving double cross and triple cross followed by lots of shooting. The reality is more than two thirds of the run time is taken up by the gun battle which intermittently stops for characters to throw insults at one another before reloading again. The fact that so many of the characters get shot multiple times and they continue to shout insults does become both boring too incredible to be taken seriously , so much so that's it's a surprise when anyone is shot dead

That said FREE FIRE isn't really a film to take seriously . You might enjoy with a bag of pop corn and will probably enjoy it more round lads flats with a six pack which might explain why it has underperformed at the box office. One might have also expected more when one of the executive producers is Martin Scorsese

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.

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).

Boston, 1973. Members of the IRA and an arms dealer come to an abandoned warehouse to make a deal to buy some machine guns. Everything is supposed to go smoothly until one member from the one group draws out a gun and shoots the other because of a previous incident. And all hell breaks.

Ben Wheatley's previous film, High Rise, I was not a fan of. High Rise felt too disturbing with heavy-handed messaging while lacking a coherent plot. Free Fire is by far a major improvement with hilarious dialogue, fun and well-written characters and non-stop action. I saw the movie at TIFF today and was pleasantly surprised. Wheatley turns this empty warehouse into a war zone with each of these character taking cover behind various objects and firing blindly. Unlike a lot of generic action movies where characters seem to magically dodge bullets, no one is safe and everyone eventually gets scraped or hit by bullets. This leads to some fun sequences of characters crawling on the ground to get from one cover to the next.

Surprisingly the two standouts are Cillian Murphy and Armie Hammer. Both were surprisingly funny in subtle ways. Sharlto Copley once again plays another weird but yet still hilarious and fun character. I also give strong shout-outs to Sam Riley and Jack Reynor. And Brie Larson is bad-ass as she holds her own weight against her male co- stars.

If I can say one negative it's that this isn't a movie with a lot of depth. It's not flat but don't expect this to be too much of a complex film. It is just simply about the these 2 trigger-happy groups trying either to kill or survive. It is more of a black comedy/thriller.

Free Fire is definitely one of the most fun and exciting action movies you will see so it is definitely worth a shot to watch once it releases in theatres.