FREE FIRE Review

I'll admit upfront that I'm not all that familiar with the collective filmography of one Ben Wheatley; yet, upon a cursory glance of his body of work, I can say that he's certainly an interesting figure in the world of independent cinema. If nothing else, Free Fire is exactly the kind of starting point one would need to kind of get how demented and truly out there this guy is as a filmmaker (which is, in and of itself, kind of weird considering how the movie itself isn't particularly bizarre)

The basic pitch is pretty simple. Its a late night in the 1970s and a bunch of criminals are in a warehouse for a gun deal. Before long, things go sour and the rest of the movie is basically a feature length shootout. So, yeah. This isn't especially deep material; but, there is a such thing as beauty in simplicity and Wheatley delivers on the thrills that premise and title promise. Besides, I haven't seen a movie this funny in such a dark way in a long time.

Of course, the cast has some fun turns that I'd be remissed to leave out of any discussion about this movie. Brie Larson*, Jack Reynor, and Cillian Murphy provide good work as the only three characters in the movie that could be considered level-headed in any capacity. Armie Hammer gets quite a few chuckles with his laidback, completely serious demeanor. But, really Sharlto Copley ends up stealing almost every scene he's in as the guy selling the merchandise. On one hand, he's easily one of the film's slimier characters. On the other hand, he seems to be one of the few characters in the movie that seems to have an actual soul. Its performances like this that remind me why I get excited when he shows up in a flick. Plus, Sam Riley is astoundingly slimy and Michael Smiley is always a hoot in stuff like this.

Do I have complaints? Sure. Despite the action being consistently entertaining for the most part, there are numerous small points were things seemed to slow down too much. Granted, part of this can be blamed on how energetic the editing in the trailer was; but, personally, I think its because of how infrequently the music is used. Maybe, there's some underlying point about how pathetic these people are for descending into senseless mayhem so easily (to be fair, that wouldn't be surprising given how this director's last film was an adaptation of one of J.G. Ballard's more scathingly satirical novels**). That having been said, this could just be me reading too much into the most basic of cinematic subtexts; besides, people are here to see funny people shooting each other and the film delivers on that front in spades.


Ultimately, Free Fire is still a ridiculously entertaining, unabashedly crass exercise in gallows humor and a gleeful bit of ultra-violence. If this is playing near you, I'd definitely encourage you to give it a look. Although its certainly for an acquired taste, chances are good that you're not going to see anything else quite like this in your local multiplex at the moment.

FREE FIRE gets a...
HEY, THAT'S PRETTY GOOD out of TEN

*Incidentally, this is the second movie I've seen this year that stars Brie Larson and uses Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Run Through The Jungle". (The first one is Kong: Skull Island).
**That movie is High Rise, in case you were wondering.