Free Fire Reviews

“I just want everyone to go home happy from this deal,” says Justine (Brie Larson), an American gunrunner who is helping to arrange a black-market arms deal in a deserted and decaying warehouse in 1970s Boston between two groups: An Irish Republican Army operative named Chris (Cillian Murphy) and his cohorts, and oily South African gun supplier Vernon (Sharlto Copley) and his assorted heavies. It’s not spoiling anything to reveal that Justine’s wish doesn’t come true; in fact, the deal quickly goes south and no one -- <I>absolutely no one</I> -- goes home happy, if they live to go home at all.   Free Fire begins smartly enough. Director Ben Wheatley (Kill List, High-Rise) does a great job introducing us to the film’s ten main characters as they converge on an old umbrella factory late at night. The tension is palpable as Justine and her stoner partner Ord (Armie Hammer) make the necessary introductions and the key players feel one another out. Unfortunately, things get tense when it’s revealed that Vernon brought AR70s when Chris wanted M16s. Making matters worse is a preexisting squabble between two flunkies, one from each side, that escalates when an apology isn’t forthcoming. Guns are drawn, shots are fired, and Justine’s wish for a happy ending suddenly gets blasted to smithereens. From there, Free Fire devolves into a long, drawn-out shoot-‘em-up that encompasses the film’s last hour.   Once the bullets start flying, most of the gunplay in Free Fire is of the cartoonish variety. Everyone gets shot, but none of their wounds are that severe at first, and pithy one-liners are exchanged as rapidly as gunfire. Yet things get a whole lot nastier as the movie starts to wind down. The violence escalates to become increasingly bloody, and bodies start dropping in rapid succession. One especially gruesome death occurs when a van, blaring John Denver’s “Annie’s Song” from its speakers, runs over a foot soldier’s head, popping it open like an overripe melon. The problem is that by the time this death occurs -- or any of the other killings, for that matter -- we simply don’t care. We aren’t made to root for one side or the other, and we’re numb to the violence. All the characters are stereotypical ruthless, F-word-spouting people who are swift to shed blood, so their deaths have little impact on us. We expect them to die in increasingly violent ways, and Wheatley doesn’t disappoint us in that regard.   Free Fire was heavily influenced by Quentin Tarantino’s 1992 classic Reservoir Dogs, but it lacks that superior film’s visceral impact, strong characterizations, and razor-sharp dialogue. The movie looks and sounds great, however, thanks to Laurie Rose’s artful lensing, Martin Pavey’s whiz-bang sound design, and Wheatley and Amy Jump’s energetic editing. The actors, too, give it their all -- despite the paper-thin characters they’re playing -- and seem like they’re having a blast, which is more than can be said of the moviegoers who are watching them.