Carnival of carnage as big guns come out blazing
FREE FIRE Run time: 90 Minutes Cast: Cillian Murphy, Brie Larson, Sharlto Copley, Armie Hammer, Sam Riley, Michael Smiley, Jack Raynor, Babou Ceesay, Enzo Cilenti, Noah Taylor, Patrick Bergin Director: Ben Wheatley
CULT British film-maker Ben Wheatley’s latest project, Free Fire, brings together a formidable arsenal of big guns, including Brie Larson and Cillian Murphy in key roles, plus Martin Scorsese as executive producer.
Alas, for all its stellar talent, Free Fire is a scattershot exercise in genre homage that ultimately misses the target. The execution may be lively and the ensemble cast impressive, but the basic idea runs out of ammunition midway through.
Judged against Wheatley’s past body of work, this latest comic thriller feels insubstantial. The pared-down plot is knowingly high-concept, a remix of ‘70s crime thriller tropes that strips away most of the backstory and concentrates on an epic gun battle between rival criminal groups, the kind of scene that might occupy a few minutes of screen time at most in a more conventional movie.
Wheatley and his screenwriter wife, Amy Jump, make the shoot-out pretty much the entire plot.
The plot hinges on two politically motivated Irish gunmen, cool-headed Chris (Murphy) and loose-cannon Frank (Michael Smiley), who are seeking to buy a truckload of rifles from flamboyant South African arms dealers Vernon (Sharlto Copley) and Martin (Babou Ceesay). Sporting period-perfect Farrah Fawcett feathered waves and a nice deadpan wit, Larson plays Justine, an intermediary for the Irishmen.
Authentically horrible retro facial hair abounds in Free Fire, which gleefully wallows in its lurid disco-era fashions. An extravagantly bearded Armie Hammer appears to be channelling the young Peter Fonda as Ord, a suave stoner working as frontman for the arms dealers.
But his sneery attitude puts everyone on edge. The mood is already combustible when a feud between two minor foot soldiers, junkie Stevo (Sam Riley) and trigger-happy Harry (Jack Reynor), escalates into an exchange of gunfire. Before long, everybody is firing indiscriminately and the warehouse becomes a battleground.
A key pleasure of Free Fire is the wisecracking between characters who aim to wound each other with words as well as bullets, adding insult to injury. A key disappointment is when it becomes clear this is pretty much all the film has to offer.
Despite some superbly choreographed pyrotechnics and kinetically nimble camera work, the action becomes repetitive and confusing once the heavy shooting starts. It also proves increasingly hard to care about these seemingly indestructible combatants, who stubbornly persist in their pointless fight despite being shot a dozen times. – Hollywood Reporter