Melting genres together is a fine-line that most directors are unable to thread. When you put two genres that aren’t naturally complimentary with each other, such as comedy-horror, or action-comedy, things get even more demanding. After “John Wick 2” had a successful run this year tackling the latter genre, it now looks like “Free Fire” will attempt to do the same.
Keep your head down
“Free Fire” was directed by Ben Wheatley, the man behind interesting projects such as “Kill List” and “High Rise." He has a talent for taking on action films and is quite stylistic in his execution as well.
“Free Fire” will be his first attempt at making a full-fledged action-comedy flick, and the first trailer suggests that he has done a good job with it.
The story of the Film isn’t quite clear from the trailer though, but from what we can gather, a band of criminals and misfits have managed to lock themselves in a massive warehouse of sorts, and appear to try to kill each other before getting knocked off themselves. Although this seems like quite a serious, Tarantino-esque scenario, the characters involved in the story seem to be the reason it has been branded as a part comedy as well.
The talent in the film include the likes of Armie Hammer ("The Social Network," "The Lone Ranger"), Sharlto Copley ("District 9," "Hardcore Henry") and Cillian Murphy ("Inception," "Batman Begins").
The only female lead in this title is the rising powerhouse Brie Larson, an actress with an impressive list of recent commercial and critical hits under her belt.
What to expect?
The trailer seems to be set almost entirely within a single location, and from what I can tell, so is the movie. This means that the writing, direction and chemistry between the actors will be the driving force behind this film.
Early reviews seem to suggest that the film hits all the right notes and is an absolute entertainer.
This is what Slash Film’s Angie Han had to say about the film after catching an early release: “Wheatley stages a never-ending knock-down-drag-out fight, trapping one woman and about a dozen men in an abandoned warehouse and then inviting us to sit back and watch as the bullets and the jokes ricochet off one another.
The result is a furiously entertaining exercise that left me buzzing with energy long after I’d left the theater.”
That is certainly a glowing review, one that should help pack the theater when "Free Fire" releases on April 21, 2017. Here is the trailer until then:
