Free Fire - Review

Everyone's favourite film making duo Ben Wheatley and Amy Jump have returned in typically surprising fashion with an anarchically amorphous action comedy of sorts. Riddled with bullets and banter and set in 70's Boston (but shot in Brighton), this stripped back tale centres on a motley crew of remarkably feckless criminals locked in a Reservoir Dogs-esque warehouse based disagreement. When the encounter turns sour as a result of a former grudge between two of the aforementioned criminals, we descend into a farcical standoff where the only thing more impressive than the amount of bullets fired is how few of them seem to hit anyone.

Although much of Free Fire seems a natural progression from their earlier work, the result is rather unexpected. We continue with a tradition of a somewhat experimental approach to storytelling, the script is littered with laugh-out-loud moments of deftly handled dark humour, and the sense of choreographed chaos conducted by Wheatley is familiar. However, the distinctly genre tinged, straight up action setting in which this takes place is new territory. This is not a film that tries to explore any profound truths about the human condition, instead it simply chooses to delight in the fun that can be had with no nonsense B movie thrills, executing them in impressively stylish fashion. As our somewhat pathetic characters lurch from one sequence of increasingly absurdist violence to another, the only message that I could draw was how pitiful we humans are.

In fact, although the film has drawn a lot of comparisons to Reservoir Dogs (it's set in a warehouse and there's lots of senseless shooting), for me the way in which the film highlights the utter pointlessness of the criminals efforts brought to mind the Coens. As we see a briefcase of money effectively trigger this bizarre descent into disarray, I couldn't help but think of Fargo's equally useless Steve Buscemi frantically burying another briefcase of money with the same crazed obsession. Wheatley and Jump  also play with comedy in a manner similar to, yet a little more overt than the Coens. Amongst a loveably hateable collection of characters, the standout is definitely the South African arms dealer Vern who is as vain as he is incompetent with a very funny penchant for punning, "Watch and Vern!". 

Wheatley's directorial effort is also pleasing, great "necessity is the mother of invention" style stuff. Despite the significant restraints inherent in the narrative, he delights in the deliberate realisation of their setting; from a carefully placed smashed glass to the relentlessly cacophonous soundscape, we are made to feel everything. In the marvel era of indiscriminate mass destruction, the rigorous depiction of the practicalities of every injury was refreshing. This is a film where our characters spend a majority of their time dragging their bullet riddled bodies across the floor, incapacitated by their prior efforts, and I was glad for it.

However, although the film is impressive as an exercise in directorial bravura, it often feels like it's fighting an uphill battle. Despite what is a remarkable job from Wheatley to maintain interest in what is happening, there are inevitably moments that the chaotic onslaught of violence becomes monotonous. As we descend from one shootout to another, you wonder if Wheatley is going to take another direction and he really doesn't, instead committing in admirable fashion to what he has started. There is no plot, but that doesn't necessarily matter. There is something fascinatingly bold in the way that it jumps head first into the action, daring the audience to blink, this manically intense exercise in protraction has plenty to enjoy.