Free Fire
Director: Ben Wheatley
Talent: Cillian Murphy, Brie Larson, Michael Smiley, Sharlto Copley, Armie Hammer, Jack Reynor
Released: 31st March
This is the all-action, gun-slinging, balls-to-the-wall IRA gun-deal-gone-wrong movie you’ve been waiting for. Free Fire marks Ben Wheatley and Amy Jump’s sixth director-writer collaboration together, and in many ways it’s their most accomplished to date. The set-up: it’s the 1970s, and two IRA men (Murphy and Smiley) have been put in contact with some shady New York arms traders (Copley and Hammer) by a go-between (Larson), with the aim of purchasing automatic weaponry to bring back to the Republican struggle. This they do, as is customary, in an abandoned and richly cinematic factory warehouse. However, unbeknownst to them, an argument from the previous night between their respective hired muscle threatens to sour the deal completely.
For its motley cast of characters and confining its action to one physical space, Free Fire will no doubt invite comparisons to Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight. But where Tarantino’s film plodded and ruminated over its three hour running time, Free Fire zips and strafes with an electric pace. This is to all intents and purposes a 90-minute gunfight. Cinematographer Laurie Rose (also a ubiquitous collaborator) captures a sense of space and place consummately. Its humour, too, sets it apart. Jump and Wheatley’s screenplay is as hilarious as 2012’s Sightseers, while also performing the difficult task of establishing ten different and real characters to play out its tightly-wound set-piece. Of these, South African Sharlto Copley’s vain wannabe gangster Vernon, providing running commentary and ham-fisted seduction tactics in equal measure, is a real highlight.
Free Fire’s lack of conventional pacing or structure, in the end, doesn’t hamper it in the slightest: rather, it makes it more unpredictable, and therefore exciting. That it succeeds so emphatically is a testament to the quality of the writing, filmmaking and individual acting performances on display. You will not see a more entertaining action film this year. Mainly though, it’s just great to see the IRA involved.
Words – Oisín Murphy-Hall
