Free Fire bummed me out. A movie with a pretty sterling pedigree of director, writer, and actors with a classy, fun premise feels like a can’t miss. Free Fire isn’t terrible, but it sure is a mediocre, gigantic waste of talent. Thanks a lot Ben Wheatley, now I’m not as in on every Brie Larson movie. I love her!!!
Free Fire is the story of an arms deal gone awry. On the side with the money is lovelorn Chris (Cillian Murphy), twitchy Frank (Michael Smiley), druggie Stevo (Sam Riley) and some other grunts. On the guns side is self important Vernon (Sharlto Copley), money guy Martin (Babou Seesay), and hot blooded Harry (Jack Reynor) among other grunts. In the middle somewhere is the charming Ord (Armie Hammer) and the girl Justine (Brie Larson), who set the deal up. A series of unfortunate events lead this deal to go sour very quickly in a Detroit warehouse and each member’s double crosses and resentments boil to the surface in a free for all shootout to the death.
Ben Wheatley is the writer/director of Free Fire. He was probably pitching this movie to the likes of Armie Hammer, Brie Larson, and Cillian Murphy on a whim, and when he realized they all agreed to do the movie, he short changed his screenplay and just let actors charisma and funky 70s setting win the day. Instead of writing to the actors talents, it felt like Wheatley was trying to find funny ways for his characters to be trapped into different spaces and not get shot. You can see these actors trying to sell this crappy dialogue, and occasionally they pull it off, but most of the time the lines that should land big laughs crash and burn. I felt nothing throughout the movie, and when I left I felt like I was duped into the beautiful actor window dressing.
The biggest failure of Free Fire is actually its hook. Clearly Wheatley pitched this movie as a funnier version of Reservoir Dogs. Reservoir Dogs was amazing because of how tense and darkly funny criminals hiding out in a confined space was, anchored by Quentin Tarantino’s amazing dialogue and ability to write torture around Stuck in the Middle With You. Ben Wheatley remixes all of these pieces from Tarantino, but because of the hook the movie, only the fight over the song lands similarly because of how that goes down. The jokiness undercuts how tense this standoff actually is, and just vaporizes any stakes Wheatley was trying to generate. Also, because of the poorly developed characters, you don’t feel anything for any fate of any character except Vernon, who is a dick. So you’re watching characters you don’t care about with no tension cracking jokes at a really scary situation? Three strikes and you’re out, Wheatley fans.
Free Fire found the one lane to make the movie not interesting. Were it just awful, it still would have been more interesting than this film, which stifles magnetic actors like Brie Larson or Armie Hammer and give them NOTHING to do. Maybe Detroit has something to do with this; I’m guessing the site search for decrepit warehouses was not a tough one.