The always polarising Ben Wheatly has never been one to conform, but here his most traditional work is also perhaps his most successful. He and long-time writing partner Amy Jump craft a tale of an arms deal gone wrong and the ensuing shootout that erupts. There's really not much else to it, the ninety-one-minute feature takes place almost entirely inside a dingy warehouse with a few characters locked in a
long-term gun battle. Thankfully, while its swift runtime does drag a little, the film always manages to hold your attention and is consistently entertaining.
The set-up is simple but effective. A rag-tag group of would-be businessmen come to a meeting in an abandoned warehouse where another similarly disorganised gang await with the intention of selling them several assault rifles. The deal gets off to a frosty start straight away, but it doesn't take long before things go awry (not in the way I expected, might I add) and the bullets start flying. Once the inevitable first shot is fired, after a well-done first act that establishes the characters and tone whilst sewing several seeds of anticipatory tension, the feature kicks it up a notch with a simultaneously broadly chaotic and intimately low-key initial skirmish. After that, Wheatly wisely plays with the pace of the piece by purposefully peppering long stretches of perpetual pot-shots with powerful explosions of meaningful confrontation. He also includes a couple of small but significant sidesteps to his own formula, which introduce life back into the central situation whenever it threatens to become stale. It's a different kind of shootout, too, with less blood but perhaps more pain; it's not long before every character is unflatteringly crawling around the dirty floor, contorting their bodies to hide behind the various slithers of cover available, and almost everyone has at least one wound to contend with. The film clearly relishes its action cinema roots while trying its best to stray away from their conventions, and as such manages to constantly find a fine balance between a realistic grit and a genre charm. The characters can be lacking, though, with only a couple of them actually feeling rounded. The majority just feel like extensions of the writers' own voices, occasionally spewing uncharacteristically calm and cruel barbs that are just as painful as the high velocity lead. The humour that stems from the characters themselves can be quite successful, but when the feature takes a step back and tries to force humour into a grim situation it can feel a tad artificial. The writing duo do enjoy their black comedy, but it's relatively rare here so when it does show up it can sometimes feels callous and out of place. Still, the fact that the feature is never afraid to be fun means that it's always a good time and never becomes dour.
Since it takes up so much of the runtime, I'll now talk about the action. The gunplay seems to be mostly practical, leading it to feel tactile and tangible, and attention is paid to the amount of ammo used, too. It's common for characters to reload their weapons or scramble for another clip, and even things like gun-jams occur. These moments never feel like plot devices, rather more like simple realities of actually using these weapons, and lend a believability to the piece that adds to its overall tension. Each bullet hits its target with true impact, sending dust and debris spewing everywhere, and characters are effected by every aspect of the environment which truly compounds them in the space. No-one has auto-aim enabled either, leading to characters missing crucial shots even when it'd be beneficial to the plot for them not to, which makes everyone seems human no matter their level of weapon expertise. Direction-wise, Wheatly makes good use of action lines to minimise confusion and edits cleanly around the gunshots for maximum impact. The camera work is mostly clean and controlled. Unfortunately, the infrequent moments of close-up action don't work nearly as well. The camera is way too close and shakes about too much, making it hard to discern what's happening. Luckily, these scenes aren't long and don't have too much impact on the larger plot. Still, it would have been nice to see them handled with as much care as the gunplay. The actors all do a great job with their material, and the writing is generally very strong overall.
In the end, 'Free Fire (2016)' is a consistently entertaining film that does drag a little but still manages to keep you engaged with its realistic edge and its genre charm. The writing is decent, the direction is clean, the acting is convincing and the action is enjoyable. It may be Wheatly's most traditional effort, but it's also perhaps his most successful. 7/10.
The set-up is simple but effective. A rag-tag group of would-be businessmen come to a meeting in an abandoned warehouse where another similarly disorganised gang await with the intention of selling them several assault rifles. The deal gets off to a frosty start straight away, but it doesn't take long before things go awry (not in the way I expected, might I add) and the bullets start flying. Once the inevitable first shot is fired, after a well-done first act that establishes the characters and tone whilst sewing several seeds of anticipatory tension, the feature kicks it up a notch with a simultaneously broadly chaotic and intimately low-key initial skirmish. After that, Wheatly wisely plays with the pace of the piece by purposefully peppering long stretches of perpetual pot-shots with powerful explosions of meaningful confrontation. He also includes a couple of small but significant sidesteps to his own formula, which introduce life back into the central situation whenever it threatens to become stale. It's a different kind of shootout, too, with less blood but perhaps more pain; it's not long before every character is unflatteringly crawling around the dirty floor, contorting their bodies to hide behind the various slithers of cover available, and almost everyone has at least one wound to contend with. The film clearly relishes its action cinema roots while trying its best to stray away from their conventions, and as such manages to constantly find a fine balance between a realistic grit and a genre charm. The characters can be lacking, though, with only a couple of them actually feeling rounded. The majority just feel like extensions of the writers' own voices, occasionally spewing uncharacteristically calm and cruel barbs that are just as painful as the high velocity lead. The humour that stems from the characters themselves can be quite successful, but when the feature takes a step back and tries to force humour into a grim situation it can feel a tad artificial. The writing duo do enjoy their black comedy, but it's relatively rare here so when it does show up it can sometimes feels callous and out of place. Still, the fact that the feature is never afraid to be fun means that it's always a good time and never becomes dour.
Since it takes up so much of the runtime, I'll now talk about the action. The gunplay seems to be mostly practical, leading it to feel tactile and tangible, and attention is paid to the amount of ammo used, too. It's common for characters to reload their weapons or scramble for another clip, and even things like gun-jams occur. These moments never feel like plot devices, rather more like simple realities of actually using these weapons, and lend a believability to the piece that adds to its overall tension. Each bullet hits its target with true impact, sending dust and debris spewing everywhere, and characters are effected by every aspect of the environment which truly compounds them in the space. No-one has auto-aim enabled either, leading to characters missing crucial shots even when it'd be beneficial to the plot for them not to, which makes everyone seems human no matter their level of weapon expertise. Direction-wise, Wheatly makes good use of action lines to minimise confusion and edits cleanly around the gunshots for maximum impact. The camera work is mostly clean and controlled. Unfortunately, the infrequent moments of close-up action don't work nearly as well. The camera is way too close and shakes about too much, making it hard to discern what's happening. Luckily, these scenes aren't long and don't have too much impact on the larger plot. Still, it would have been nice to see them handled with as much care as the gunplay. The actors all do a great job with their material, and the writing is generally very strong overall.
In the end, 'Free Fire (2016)' is a consistently entertaining film that does drag a little but still manages to keep you engaged with its realistic edge and its genre charm. The writing is decent, the direction is clean, the acting is convincing and the action is enjoyable. It may be Wheatly's most traditional effort, but it's also perhaps his most successful. 7/10.