Review: Free Fire

(Dir: Ben Wheatley, 2016)

Finally, director Ben Wheatley has made a film that's not awful. His film's have always had potential, and he has a decent eye that delivers something interesting visually, but his sheer inability to tell a story makes watching his work an intensely frustrating experience. Free Fire had the alarm bells ringing (yet again). In anyone else's hands the simple plot of a warehouse-set arms deal gone wrong that quickly devolves into a shoot-out lasting most of the film's duration would sound like fun. But with this being a Wheatley film the realistic expectation was for him to fuck it all up and make a deathly boring but good-looking film. Alas it's actually entertaining and mostly works!

Two reasons why it works – the seventies setting adds some neat touches like the clothing, music and lack of modern technology which helps the plot. But most importantly, the casting. On one side it's the Northern Irish headed by Cillian Murphy and Michael Smiley, on the other it's crazed South African Sharlto Copley. And the middle-men for the deal are Brie Larson and Armie Hammer. All commit to their parts convincingly, with little individual rivalries coming to the fore which make it a touch more interesting, allowing the script to take on an acerbic tone. There's a very solid build up and mounting tension as to what's going to set everything off, and when it gets going most of the action is fun and not too ridiculous (it's impossible to escape some ridiculousness when an hour of your film is just people shooting at each other). One might liken this to a war film, with two sides dug-in and fighting each other over the middle ground. There's a sense of fun here and it's that, if anything, which we've never seen in Wheatley's films before – there's no current of darkness running beneath it all. By keeping things pacy and casting well, Free Fire is an enjoyably light ninety minute diversion that doesn't outstay it's welcome.