Free Fire (2017) Review: One Warehouse, Too Many Guns

Is Free Fire worth watching?

It depends on your appetite for a single joke told very well for a very long time. Free Fire is a gleefully nasty action comedy that turns one botched arms deal into a feature-length shootout, and its cast clearly relish every insult. Ben Wheatley stages the chaos with real control, and the first half-hour of bickering and escalating tension is terrific. The reservation is that once the bullets start flying, the film has nowhere much to go, and the novelty wears thin well before the end.

What is Free Fire about?

Free Fire is set in Boston in 1978. Two groups meet in a deserted warehouse to complete a weapons sale: on one side, a pair of Irish buyers, Chris (Cillian Murphy) and Frank (Michael Smiley), with their unreliable hired help; on the other, a flamboyant South African arms dealer, Vernon (Sharlto Copley), and his crew. Brokering the deal are the cool, capable Justine (Brie Larson) and the unflappable Ord (Armie Hammer).

Everyone is on edge, the guns are not quite what was ordered, and a grudge from the night before is about to surface between two of the low-level men. Within minutes the handover collapses into a gunfight, and the rest of the film follows both sides as they crawl, bleed and scheme across the warehouse floor, trying to work out who is on whose side and how to get out alive.

Ben Wheatley directs from a script he co-wrote with Amy Jump. The English-language British production runs a tight 91 minutes, with Jack Reynor, Sam Riley, Noah Taylor and Babou Ceesay rounding out the ensemble.

An ensemble having a riot

The pleasure of Free Fire is watching a cast of sharp comic actors play people who are all slightly less competent than they think. Copley steals scene after scene as Vernon, a vain, overdressed peacock with a fragile ego and a stream of absurd boasts. Hammer is enjoyably laconic as Ord, the one man who never seems to lose his cool, while Larson makes Justine the shrewdest person in the room.

Murphy and Smiley bring a grounded weariness that makes their characters oddly sympathetic, and Sam Riley and Jack Reynor, as the two hotheads whose feud lights the fuse, are convincingly petty. The dialogue is quick, profane and often very funny, especially in the early stretch when everyone is sizing each other up.

A shootout staged with unusual precision

Wheatley treats the warehouse like a stage, and the geography, while sometimes confusing, is carefully planned: characters are pinned behind pillars, crates and vehicles, and every movement across open floor becomes a gamble. The violence is deliberately unglamorous. People get shot in the leg, the arm and the shoulder rather than dropping cleanly, and much of the film consists of wounded men dragging themselves across concrete, which is both grimly funny and oddly realistic.

The sound design is a highlight. Gunshots crack and echo around the space, ricochets whine off steel, and the 1970s soundtrack choices add period flavour. The costumes, all wide lapels and bad moustaches, complete a look that is as much comic as authentic.

Where the joke runs out

The problem is structural. After the first half-hour, the film is essentially one long set piece with few changes of rhythm, and the constant gunfire becomes numbing. The characters are fun but thin, so there is little emotional investment in who survives, and the complications that arrive are too slight to reset the tension. Some viewers will also find it hard to track who is where in the dimly lit chaos. At 91 minutes it is short, yet it still feels padded.

Who should watch Free Fire?

It suits fans of Ben Wheatley, admirers of blackly comic crime films, and anyone who enjoys ensemble banter and a single-location challenge. It is best watched with a crowd that enjoys a laugh at violence. The violence is constant and occasionally gruesome, and the language is extremely strong throughout, so it is for adults only.

If you like its mix of crime and comedy:

• Trainspotting, a British black comedy about small-time crooks, with far more emotional weight.
• Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, another film from the same year that mixes sudden violence with savage humour.

The verdict

Free Fire is a stylish, funny and technically assured exercise in sustained chaos, with a cast that gives it real personality. As a feature-length idea, though, it runs out of ammunition long before its characters do, making it a fun one-time watch rather than a lasting favourite.

Rating: 3/5