In search of gunplay nirvana, writer-director Ben Wheatley takes the most generic scene in all of post-Tarantino cinema—the criminal transaction erupting into a bloody shoot-out—and expands it into an entire movie. One crew (Cillian Murphy, Brie Larson, Sam Riley, et al) shows up at a warehouse with a suitcase full of cash, the other (Sharlto Copley, Noah Taylor, et al) with a shipment of machine guns, but everything goes to hell and they all wind up taking positions in the sprawling space and firing on each other until the credits roll. Wheatley and Amy Jump, his frequent screenwriting partner, can’t afford to let the action flag for long, so the characters never amount to much more than their immediate tactical advantage or disadvantage. But I could tell Murphy and company were the heroes, because their mustaches were cooler. With Armie Hammer.
Free Fire
R • 1 hour 30 min • 2017
