Free Fire is a new run at old-school shoot out movies, it is an R rated flick written by Amy Jump and directed by Ben Wheatley. This 90 minute romp has an all-star cast including Enzo Cilenti, Armie Hammer and Cillian Murphy.
First Thoughts: Fun, just a heck of a lot of fun. This movie feels like an old school Tarantino movie, something that he would have made in the early ’90s. It’s filled with tight dialogue and interesting characters that are thrust together under a very simple premise to make a solid movie.
What’s it about? A gang want’s to buy guns from an arms dealer, their respective groups meet in a warehouse to close the deal; something goes wrong. From there the bullets and barbs start flying and don’t stop until the end credits. The stand out performance for me was Jack Treynor as the John Denver fan Harry; his performance as a brother out for vengeance for his wronged sister is captivating and has you rooting for him throughout the film. From his very introduction you are waiting for the inevitable showdown between Harry and the meth smoking Stevo, (played by Sam Riley) and when it comes, it is everything you hoped for.
Now as I said, I love these characters, their dialogue and how this movie keeps everything fresh; all those are firmly in the pro side, but there are a couple of flaws that need to be mentioned.
One is the shaky cam, a lot of the action sequences are filmed with the shaky cam and that can make it difficult to figure out who is shooting at who sometimes. Second is to keep in mind that this is truly a popcorn movie; it’s best not to think too deeply about some of the background plot as there are a few storylines that seemed to have been dropped or left on the editing room floor.
All that being said I still had a great time and if you’re in the mood for a bit of fun, and don’t mind the overuse of the F-bomb then I would say it is firmly worth a watch.
This movie gets three and a half out of five used AK-47’s
