Free Fire

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.

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

!!!! SUGGESTIVE SPOILERS !!!!

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

This film tells the story of two gangs in the United States of America, who meet in a warehouse to do a transaction on heavy firearms. Their deal quickly goes haywire when a fight breaks out, and a shootout ensues.

"Free Fire" is exactly what it says. The story is basically a free for all, shoot all you like as if there's no tomorrow kind of affair. It could have been an intense crime film, but it is not. The thing is that the plot has nothing else, just shooting. I really wonder how the film manages to carry on for ninety minutes, when all it shows is one person shooting another. I keep thinking to myself why don't the characters just die already, and end the horrible film right away! I wonder why this film with a non existent plot can attract so many actors and actresses who are famous.

I watched this at a Cineworld Unlimited showing. Before it played, there was a little intro from Ben Wheatley the director. He described the movie as a fun action film, with lots of violence and lots of swearing, and that it was mercifully short. I'm not sure I can characterise it much better than that. So I'm not going to try.

When I saw the trailers for this film, I turned to my wife and said "I really hope this whole film is contained in the one room, if they do that, then it will have to stand and fall on the script, the characters and the acting, rather than just rely on some special effects and the action". I am pleased to report, I got my wish.

The setup is simple. We're in 1978, a group of Irish men (presumably IRA) are trying to buy guns in American, Boston to be precise, so they ship them back to Ireland, and use them to shoot the British. The 'brains' of the outfit are Chris and Frank played by Cillian Murphy and Michael Smiley respectively. The (and I'm using this next word in the loosest possible way) 'muscle' (but in all fairness, they certainly don't seem to have any brains) are Stevo and Bernie.

On the other side, we have the sellers, headed up by Vern, played by Sharlto Copley, and Ord played by Armie Hammer.

Both parties seem to have been brought together by the only woman in the film, Justine played by Brie Larson.

So, we have a briefcase full of cash, and a van full of guns, all we have to do is swap one for the other. What could go wrong?

Let's just say that there is a disagreement over someone's actions, and things quickly spiral out of control.

I'm not going to get into details, because to be honest, there aren't very many, and if you've read any of my other reviews I don't like to spoil. We can just say that bullets start flying, left, right and centre, and we have a film.

The films hangs on the humour of the situation. The one liners, the insanely inappropriate comments, the wonderful character interactions.

The exchanges between Frank and Ord are wonderful.

Vern is hilarious, and his reactions to Chris chatting up Justine are a great running joke. It really will make you giggle, often at things you'd wish didn't make you laugh. Watching people get shot shouldn't be funny, but in this context, it just is.

This is the ultimate Mexican standoff. Luckily none of the characters have a particularly good aim, so the ridiculousness lasts exactly 90 minutes, and that feels just about right. There is only so much chaos, bursts of gunfire interlinked with witty banter that an audience can take.

This isn't a great film by any stretch of the imagination, but it is a wonderful example of a guilty pleasure movie. Lots of action, lots of jokes, and a little more intrigue then you originally expect. Oh, didn't I say it doesn't play out quite as simply as you'd assume? No? Well it doesn't, it actually keeps you on your toes, that is when you're not rolling around on the floor.

Remember to listen carefully, because some of the best jokes come in the middle of gunshots, or are said in a ridiculously over the top South African accent.

Well worth 90 minutes of anyone's time.

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.