Arms deal ends in a full-on shoot-out
FREE FIRE (Cert 15; 91mins)
SOMETIMES the tastiest meals can be made from the simplest ingredients. In Free Fire, cult director Ben Wheatley transforms a single location, a bunch of rum characters and a small arsenal of weapons into a freewheeling, trigger-happy thriller that is often outrageously entertaining.
Free Fire is set in late-1970s Boston and, with Martin Scorsese as its executive producer, it doffs its cap to some of the coolest American thrillers of that time from Assault On Precinct 13 to The Driver. The period setting gives the costume designer some colourful options for attire and allows the actors to go wild with sideburns, moustaches and mullets.
But there is more than nostalgia at play here. A wise Wheatley knows that the 1970s setting means he can dispense with all the advances of our technological era. If one of those rum characters had a mobile or satnav, there wouldn’t be much of a plot.
As it is, Irishmen Chris (Cillian Murphy) and Frank (Michael Smiley) arrive at a Boston warehouse to buy guns from Vernon (Sharlto Copley), a boorish braggart who thinks he is God’s gift to humanity in general and women in particular.
The deal was brokered by Justine (Oscar-winner Brie Larson) and Ord, played by a dapper, laid-back Armie Hammer who displays more wit and skill as an actor the further he strays from bland Hollywood blockbusters.
But the previous night’s altercation between Stevo (Sam Riley) and Harry (Jack Reynor) is about to kick off all over again in the same warehouse.
Soon all hell breaks loose as tempers fray, tensions rise, shots are fired and you wonder whether anyone will get out alive.
In the final stretches, Free Fire becomes one long, carefully choreographed shoot-out in the dust and debris of the warehouse. Virtually everyone is either hit, maimed, incinerated, killed or all of the above.
The number of rounds fired and wounds sustained feels akin to a small war and, if you are of a sensitive disposition, then it might be too much to bear. But the film’s saving graces are the deliciously dark wit of the screenplay and the fantastic performances of the ensemble cast.
Even in the midst of the mayhem, there is time for a witty one-liner, some cracking banter or a knowingly daft attitude that is completely at odds with the seriousness of the situation. It makes the bloodshed and death easier on the palate.
Free Fire is an exhilarating exercise in pure storytelling where Wheatley and co-writer Amy Jump are firing on all cylinders.
GHOST IN THE SHELL (Cert 12A; 107mins)
TWENTY years after Japanese manga comic Ghost In The Shell was transformed into an acclaimed animated feature, Scarlett Johansson heads a surprisingly classy international cast including Juliette Binoche in a live-action remake.
In Japan in 2029 the world is a dark, dangerous, crime-infested hell but salvation is at hand in the shape of Major Kusanagi (Johansson), a human transformed by the miracle of cybernetics into a perfect terrorist-fighting machine. She is a combination of Robocop, Jason Bourne and the character Johansson played in 2014’s Lucy.
Just like Bourne, Major has a murky recollection of her past and uncovering what happened to her forms part of the vengeance-fuelled plot.
Ghost In The Shell is a sleek, futuristic, action-packed thriller and an undeniable visual feast but the clunky dialogue and stiff performances make this feel all a little soulless.
GRADUATION (Cert 15; 128mins)
THE road to hell is paved with good intentions in Graduation, a gripping Romanian drama that was among the top prize-winners at the Cannes Film Festival.
Like any parent on the planet, respected doctor Romeo Altea (Adrian Titieni) wants the best for his child. Eliza (Maria Dragus) has been awarded a scholarship to study psychology in Britain and all she has to do now is pass her final exams.
It sounds so simple but the strength of Graduation is the way it takes an everyday situation and transforms it into something as tense and involving as the most fanciful thriller.
On the first day of the exams Eliza is attacked and left badly shaken. Altea’s greatest concern is how this will affect her academic performance. He wants to ask a favour from those in authority, a little extra consideration.
It is the start of an escalating series of compromises in which Altea gradually surrenders all his moral bearings. Graduation is
undoubtedly a bit of a slow-burner but it grows in intensity and becomes completely absorbing as we discover a whole world of guilty secrets and hidden lives.
MAN DOWN (Cert 15; 88mins)
IF only everything in Man Down was as good as Shia LaBeouf’s emotionally charged performance.
The film offers a bleak vision of a future America where homes have been abandoned and ruined streets are strewn with rubble after some unspecified catastrophe. US Marine Gabriel (LaBeouf) and his best friend Devin (Jai Courtney) are on a desperate quest to find Gabriel’s wife and missing son.
Flashbacks show Gabriel as a devoted family man but also point to a traumatic incident during his tour of duty in Afghanistan.
The ingredients of science fiction, family drama and war movie never really gel and a plot twist tugs at the heartstrings but undermines credibility.
THE AUTOPSY Of JANE DOE (Cert 15; 85mins)
GRISLY, heart-pounding chills are the order of the day in this creepy supernatural yarn.
In small-town Virginia, the body of an unknown young woman is discovered at a bloody crime scene and the authorities urgently need to determine her cause of death.
Coroner Tom Tilden (Brian Cox) and his son Austin (Emile Hirsch) work through the stormy night. The corpse is pristine but the first incision reveals something is horribly wrong. The more they uncover, the more unsettling this tense, darkly comic mystery becomes.
SMURFS: THE LOST VILLAGE (Cert U; 90mins)
THE latest Smurfs effort dispenses with the services of human stars such as Neil Patrick Harris and Hank Azaria to create a fully animated adventure and it’s not really an improvement.
A mysterious map sends Smurfette (voiced by Demi Lovato) and her friends Brainy (Danny Pudi), Clumsy (Jack McBrayer) and Hefty (Joe Manganiello) racing through the Forbidden Forest to find a lost village before evil wizard Gargamel (Rainn Wilson) can beat them to it.
Colourful settings and fantastical beasts might appeal to young ones but the bland plot and awful puns make this an ordeal for grown-ups.