<em>Free Fire</em> Brings the Guns, but Forgets the Characters
Ben Wheatley’s new film is a 90-minute shoot-out in an empty warehouse, and it’s exactly as interesting as that sounds.
A handful of character actors and an Oscar-winner walk into an abandoned factory, decked out in the finest ’70s polyester suits and most garish wigs imaginable. They’re all packing heat. Most of them have brought their baddest attitudes as well, the kind of hair-trigger tempers that might seem unwelcome when purchasing several crates of machine guns. It seems like things will go wrong, and quickly enough, they do, pitting a gang of IRA terrorists against a cadre of weapons dealers in a drawn-out, almost every second sees its well-rounded ensemble ducking behind pillars and firing potshots at each other. But it’s not telling much of a story.
