Free Fire (2016)
(On Cable TV, May 2019) When I say that Free Fire isn’t quite as successful as it could be, this isn’t as bad a review as you’d expect. For one thing, it actually tries something somewhat ambitious: a genre thriller in which an ensemble cast sustain an extended shootout inside a run-down warehouse. It takes a lot of cleverness to stage such a lengthy sequence while keeping it intelligible, visually exciting, differentiating the characters and yet sustain the action over nearly ninety minutes. That the film doesn’t quite succeed does not invalidate the work required to bring it there. Alas, there’s a feeling that for all of writer-director Ben Wheatley’s inventiveness, there’s something missing from the result. The film doesn’t quite create the compelling viewing that such an exercise would suggest. Being unbelievably violent, it’s not joyful in the least (the high body count, including two lamented late-movie deaths, doesn’t help), and for all of the script’s rather good writing, there isn’t as much cool dialogue as could be hoped for. In short, Free Fire is not bad but it’s still a fair way away from the genre classic it could have been: the characters are bit bland — Brie Larson and Armie Hammer do well as the only competent ones in the place; the other cast members not so memorably—and the action doesn’t quite capture the full mayhem that could have been. I still consider it a good time viewing, but it could have been much more.