Free Fire is Tarantino-esque but without the pretension

EVER watched a Tarantino movie and wished it was an hour and a half shorter and 80 per cent less pretentious pontificating? Free Fire might be for you.

THERE’S no mistaking the undeniable influence of Quentin Tarantino in Free Fire and the comparisons are inescapable.

It has a Reservoir Dogs meets The Hateful Eight meets almost everything else Tarantino has done vibe. But that’s not to say that Free Fire is merely a pastiche.

In many ways, it’s almost better than some of Tarantino’s most recent work if “better” means less indulgent and more watchable. And not three hours long.

Ben Wheatley (High-Rise) has crafted a film with a similar anarchic energy — loads of gun violence and copious salty language. It’s also not burdened by the pretentious pontificating that’s pervasive throughout a lot of Tarantino’s work.

Set in the 1970s, IRA members including Chris (Cillian Murphy) and Frank (Michael Smiley) meet intermediary Justine (Brie Larson) outside an abandoned warehouse in Boston.

Reservoir Dogs.

Chris and Frank are here to buy guns — specifically M16s — from gunrunner Vernon (Sharlto Copley), represented by the smooth talking and unflappable Ord (Armie Hammer) and backed up by his associates (Babou Ceesay, Noah Taylor, Jack Reynor).

It’s not long before the tense trade-off goes awry and bullets start flying. Accusations are flung, shade is thrown and blood is splattered.

Everyone wants to walk out of there, alive and with the briefcase full of cash or the rifles they came to buy, but no one is willing to give an inch in a battle started over a personal grievance. Not even self-preservation is enough for logic to take over.

Mash together two volatile groups with a f**kload of guns, an endless stream of ammunition, a paranoid mindset, and the carnage is inevitable. You’ll have to forgive the idea that everyone must be terrible, terrible shots because while a lot of bullets hit skin, none of them are really fatal.

Guns and poly-blend.

While the characters remain underdeveloped, the performances are good, especially the scene-stealing Copley (District 9) as Vernon who was “misdiagnosed as a child genius and never got over it”.

Free Fire is a clever film with snappy writing and decent action choreography — not an inconsiderable feat given 80 per cent of the movie is characters shooting at each other from behind various pylons and crates.

That Wheatley managed to cover it, a one-location film, in an interesting manner — askew framing, fast edits, close-ups — without being confusing is worth noting.

He can’t match Tarantino for flair but Wheatley is still a young director and he will have time to refine his approach. But here, and in last year’s High-Rise, it’s clear he’s developing a confident style.

He’s also managed to pace out Free Fire really well, mixing up the increasingly pathetic gun fight with banter and the realism of the fact that in a real-time stand-off like this, people become exhausted.

The downside of not having that Tarantino pretension is Free Fire doesn’t stand for much of anything, which is not something you can ever accuse of ol’ Quentin. While darkly funny, it’s a simple movie that doesn’t have much to say beyond the idea that people are idiots. But it’s kind of fun if you can stomach the violence.

Rating: 3/5

Free Fire is in cinemas from today.

Continue the conversation on Twitter with @wenleima.

Idiots. Every one of them.

Originally published as Free Fire is Tarantino-esque but without the pretension