Review- Free Fire and a Q&A with Ben Wheatley

Free Fire is the latest film from British auteur Ben Wheatley and is easily his most accessible yet. It is the story of a gun deal with some Irishmen buying some weapons from a South African. After a series of misfires, a shootout erupts and it is messy, both in the sense that there is plenty of gore but also that these people are not very good at landing killing shots on each other, something that thankfully allows for a claustrophobic and fairly tense ninety minutes. I'm not telling you anything else of the plot, not because I don't want to ruin it but because there genuinely isn't much more. This is a film where the plot is simple so that everything else can become the focus. That said, it is an enjoyable plot that allows for some great character interactions. Speaking of...

One of the things I was excited for going into the film was the cast. It is a fantastic cast list and I really hoped that they would live up to my expectations. I'll quite the suspense and just tell you they are all universally brilliant. There is a great supporting cast but for the sake of brevity I'll focus on the main players. Brie Larson is Justine and as the sole woman in the film should bring a lady like grace but is just as willing to shoot bullets or quips at others. She also allows for some entertaining conflict between two of the other characters for fairly obvious reasons. Cillian Murphy plays the guy buying the guns and does his Cillian Murphy thing in that he is a chameleonic actor so he blends into his role very well. Armie Hammer is also here but does a very different performance than his one in The Social Network. Here, he is very laid back, even during the fights, and he is a total charismatic delight. The single best performance though is Sharlto Copley as the slimy dealer. Maybe it's because of the script, maybe it's because of his delivery or maybe it's just because Sharlto Copley has an inherently hilarious accent but everything he said was hilarious and added a wonderful levity to the film.

What the film lives and dies on though is the energy that Ben Wheatley is able to inject into the film through both his directing and his script. As I've already mentioned, much of the dialogue is hilarious and there's also some nice little touches of foreshadowing in the first twenty minutes, plus they really do manage to stretch a lot out of the single setting. Just when you think you've seen everything that can happen in a factory, they play with something new which keeps the film surprisingly fresh. Speaking of, in a film that's basically a 90 minute gun fight, you need really good action. Fortunately, Wheatley does just that, creating the kind of action I have come to love in which every bullet feels like it matters. Admittedly, very few bullets kill. In accordance with reality so many of the characters spend the film stumbling around and bleeding, just trying to shoot back near the person who's shooting at them. Still, it's done so that you understand where the bullets are coming from (all around) and who is standing where, even if you keep forgetting who is on which side. It may be a comedy but the action really does hit, including some particularly nasty moments.

Honestly, I was really happy with Free Fire, it just stuck with my incredibly well. Unlike High-Rise which required some real personal investment to draw something out but could ultimately prove fairly rewarding, this is just a proper fun time. Don't expect your typical Hollywood action movie but equally, that is what makes the film wonderful. It is funny, it is intense and it is very different to most action films, even with the recent renaissance in action. I had a fantastic time and I feel like most others will too, the reason I give the film a

But wait, there's more. As I briefly mentioned, the screening I went to also had a Q and A with director Ben Wheatley and so I'll talk a bit about that too. First off, Ben seemed like a really nice guy who absolutely knows his stuff when it comes to cinema, by which I basically mean he referenced movies that I've never heard of by directors I don't know. He also answered all sorts of questions from the aggressively pretentious ("Was the horizontal nature of this film a response to the verticality of High-Rise?") to the silly ("Did you know what was going to happen to the characters at the end of the film?"). He answered all of them in a humourous way and many of them in an informative way but really, it was just great to see a guy who is such an intelligent filmmaker be such a genuine delight to see in conversation. If you ever have the chance to meet Ben or go to a Q&A with him, I highly recommend it.