In 1970s Boston a contingent of IRA men schedule a meeting with arms sellers in a derelict factory only to become embroiled in an argument that finishes in a shoot-out
One constantly thinks that director Ben Wheatley is on the brink of great things. With FREE FIRE you might have thought he'd hit the international target. Set in America ( Though amazingly it's shot in Brighton. England ) and classed as a blackly comical thriller in the style of Tarantino you'd have thought it might have done better at the box office but fails slightly on two levels
Firstly Tarantino is a brand name and unless your name is Quentin Tarantino it's a mistake with hindsight to emulate this style of film making because you're just going to slip in to parody. In fact even Tarantino parodies Quentin Tarantino these days with very mediocre results. You want to pitch a film ? Then please don't use the initials QT
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Secondly there's very little story at all . I was very surprised as to how soon things kicked off. I was expecting an hour of insults and plot turns involving double cross and triple cross followed by lots of shooting. The reality is more than two thirds of the run time is taken up by the gun battle which intermittently stops for characters to throw insults at one another before reloading again. The fact that so many of the characters get shot multiple times and they continue to shout insults does become both boring too incredible to be taken seriously , so much so that's it's a surprise when anyone is shot dead
That said FREE FIRE isn't really a film to take seriously . You might enjoy with a bag of pop corn and will probably enjoy it more round lads flats with a six pack which might explain why it has underperformed at the box office. One might have also expected more when one of the executive producers is Martin Scorsese
