Day
30 Free Fire [2016]
Screenplay Amy Jump & Ben Wheatley
Director Ben Wheatley
Cinematography Laurie Rose
Music Ben Salisbury &
Geoff Barrow
Leads Armie Hammer, Brie Larson, Cillian
Murphy, Noah Taylor, Sharlto Copley
Production Film4 Productions, BFI,
Rook Films, Protagonist Pictures
IMDb 6.5/10
RottenTomatoes 67%
Good
cast, good trailer, distinctly average film. It’s a shame really as I highly
rate the cast. I have to pick out Sharlto Copley (District
9), I find the guy hilarious. I want to launch into a rant about how good
District 9 is but I’ll refrain. Copley is different to his Wikus van der Merwe
character in this, but just as good, funny without trying to be funny. The film
revolves around your classic crate of guns for a briefcase of cash scenario. It
goes wrong and the film becomes about escape, everyone gets shot ten times, or
hurt horribly in some way and that’s that. I liked the effort, but the end
product wasn’t as good as it could have been. Compare it to The Hateful
Eight, for example, where 95% of the film is shot in one room, Tarantino
managed to build real tension, character depth and the dialogue is typically fantastic. Perhaps
unfair to compare this with the genius of QT but watch Free Fire and you’ll see what
I’m trying to get at. This could have been so much better, and the trailer is
testament to that, I thought I was going to be watching some tension-packed,
clever dialogue, twisted ending stand-off. In the end, I felt as knackered as
the actors must have felt dragging themselves around the dusty floor. Predictably,
this film was not a hit, it’s aim was as bad as the characters’ in it. The
acting saved it a bit, although you’d hope so with a cast like this.
Acting 3 / 4
Writing 2 / 4
Cinematography 2 / 4
Music 1.5 / 4
HWF rating 2.5 / 4