Friday, April 21, 2017

Just Give Your Piece A Chance

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Free Fire has movements like music - it's not quite a symphony of violence, or the ballet that John Woo movies are oft-times accused of resembling; it's more like modern noise. Clanging and bellows - discord. Noise is paramount - the sound of guns being fired has never felt like this to me before. It's one long shoot-out inside an abandoned factory made of cement, and every bullet explodes and whizzes and ricochets and echoes while the walls burst and crumble and the characters make these scuff scuff scuff noises as they crawl through the debris, occasionally yelping.

And in between the yelping come these torrents of dialogue - but there's nothing Tarintino-esque about their talk; it's funny but not inhumanly clever. These folks seem like folks, folks who've just found themselves in a great big giant pickle they weren't prepared for, and who are just kind of verbally awestruck by the sudden bullshit.

Writer-director Ben Wheatley (along with his co-writer Amy Jump) takes time, too - they let the scenario breathe, and the characters take long rests, and we come to know and like pretty much every damn one of these colorful but just-folks folks, which is a tough spot to be in when the bullets are flying so willy-nilly, for them and for we the watchers in the stands. Body counts are a tough business, from both sides. Free Fire is super fun and emotionally desperate in equal measure - it's an action movie with life and blood pumping through it, in it, and out of it too.
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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I looove the posters/art for this film.