There is no normal when it comes to the films of Ben Wheatley. As he’s shown in everything from “Kill List” to “A Field In England” to this spring’s surreal madhouse “High-Rise,” all you can do is strap in, and brace yourself for an experience like no other. Genre is merely semantics when it comes to the filmmaker who doesn’t just break rules, but makes up his own. And so, when it comes to his star-studded action flick “Free Fire” — featuring Brie Larson, Cillian Murphy, Sam Riley, Sharlto Copley, Armie Hammer, Michael Smiley and Jack Reynor, and executive produced by Martin Scorsese — don’t expect the ordinary.
The ’70s film runs on a simple premise — a deal between two rival gangs in Boston goes south, leading to all out gun battle — but this ain’t your average shoot ’em up.
“I wanted to make an action movie that was more on a human scale. I watch a lot of movies and I’m increasingly finding that things I should be amazed about, like buildings blowing up and stuff, just don’t have much impact. And then I began reading about what an actual gunfight is like from police transcripts and reports, and how crazy it is. How no one can hit anything. You see these reports that say that American cops fired 200 bullets… and they all missed! Because if anything is even slightly moving, you can’t hit it. And you can’t just hit something miles away with a .38 Special – it’s all bullshit,” Wheatley told The Guardian. “And in the story the gun deal goes wrong and they all start blazing away at each other, and then they’re all on the ground. And the rest of the film is: what do they do next?”
“Free Fire” premiered tonight at TIFF and will open in 2017. Read our review from this morning right here.