In the dead of night in an abandoned dock building
in Boston, 1978, Justine (Brie Larson),
a well-connected businesswoman has facilitated a deal between some amateur IRA
militants (Cillian Murphy, Michael Smiley, Sam Riley) and vainglorious international gunrunners (Arnie Hammer, Sharlto Copley). It is
supposed to be a straight swap of a van of M16s and a suitcase packed with
dollars, but tensions are high and one of the periphery goons on either side of
the deal recognise each other leading to an altercation where bullets are
exchanged… for the next 90 minutes.
That is essentially the whole plot of Ben Wheatley’s Free Fire: an extended shoot out in an old warehouse between rival
egomaniacal criminal ‘gangs’. Yet it is
so tightly scripted, acted and contained that it could have lasted another 60
minutes and still been engaging.
