You’re in a room, a large one, with all your co-workers. All of you are armed with a gun. Everybody is pointing at everyone else all yelling “Don’t fire! Don’t Fire!”. Stress is high. Who do you trust? You know Gary in accounting drinks way too much coffee, he might have an itchy trigger finger. Pam goes to the bathroom every hour like clockwork and might pull the trigger just to get out of there. But you’re all friends, right? And you have a job to do. Now you are in the mindset of Free Fire. And in a certain way, the game of International Nuclear Deterrence.

With a running time of 1 hour and 30 minutes, there is no time to waste. Then again, director Ben Wheatley is in no rush either. As you are probably aware, Free Fire spends most of its film in one location, an abandoned warehouse where a gun fight breaks out during a botched illegal arms sale. Before the bullets start flying, he spends time deliberately setting up character relationships somewhat akin to Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs, with less seemingly meaningless conversation. In effect, the script and delivery is this films best attribute. It’s fun, witty, and plays heavily on the various characteristics and stereotypes of the players. It has the obvious stand out performances by Cillian Murphy, Armie Hammer, and everyone’s favorite white African Sharlto Copley, but they don’t overshadow Brie Larson, Michael Smiley, or Sam Riley. It truly pulls off the ensemble cast with deadly accuracy.

The whole time I was watching this situation deteriorate, I couldn’t help thinking about the ever present issue of Nuclear Deterrence. Imagine each character is a country, some aligned with each other, some brokering deals between each other, and others completely at odds. One character has beef with another and even though he knows that pulling the trigger may cause trouble for his allies and countryman, the personal slight he may have received is worth retribution. Really, all this film needed to hit this on the head was to add a Korean cast member, and it would be a 1:1 relationship with reality. This is the conflict at the heart of Free Fire. At any point, is it worth pulling the trigger?

I came out of this film with a smile, and while it definitely warrants repeat viewings based on the performance of the actors alone, it has one spotty imperfection. It’s very hard to follow the action and the location of each character for most of the film. I suppose the confusion is intentional or maybe I just wasn’t paying close enough attention, but it comes off a bit sloppy. Visually, there are a few anchor points to help you place each character, but with the constant pivot between their locations, you easily get lost. The main reason this is noticeable is because of the anchor points; a van here, a dead body there. It challenged my attention and I felt like I lost. But considering that is my harshest criticism, that ain’t half bad! Free Fire is a great way to spend an afternoon, and with its 1990’s runtime, it won’t fill up your entire day.

~* 8/10 * ~