Free Fire (second-pass)
Cert: 15 / 91 mins / Dir. Ben Wheatley / Trailer
An odd one, this. Free Fire is a film I'd been itching to watch again since my first-pass.*1 In the interim, I'd somehow managed to forget how consistently funny it is, despite me telling people over the last few weeks that humour is one of its many strengths, and I can say hand-on-heart that there are nothing but fantastic performances all round. I fact, I can't think of a single bad thing to say about any of it.
Which is why I'm struggling to think how I haven't given the movie full-marks. Sure, I don't hand that score out often, but Free Fire is a remarkable film. It's not a sequel, reboot or franchise-entry, the 'price of admission'*2 is low and it's continually engaging with a fairly linear story. The script is eminently quotable and the run-time doesn't outstay its welcome. The film's almost unique in that I wouldn't really know what to place it next to on a shelf, other than Ben Wheatley's other films. For an out-of-the-blue movie which can appeal to multiple demographics*3, this is unprecedented Film Of The Year material. And yet I'm still only marking it 6, without knowing what could possibly make it any better. Answers on a postcard, please.
I didn't necessarily 'get' more out of watching Free Fire again, but I enjoyed it every single bit as much. This film is future comfort-food for the cold, dark winter months.
Oh, and nice touch with Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury's Justine's Theme on the soundtrack being a musical reference to Giorgio Moroder's end-credits piece in Scarface.
I'm assuming that's deliberate since it sticks out like a sore thumb.
Best dialogue:
a)"...I like his jumper."
b) [two men, grappling on an abandoned warehouse floor]
"You smell of perfume!" "IT'S... BEARD OIL!"
c)"I just want a little sympathy, that's all." "You want sympathy, son? It's in the dictionary between shit and syphilis, now get over there..."
Best? Probably not.
Most entertaining? Quite possibly.
Nope.
Nope.
Level 1: Cornelius Evazan's in this. And he has two of those best-lines, up there.
*1 And what a difference a change-of-screen makes. The mumbled dialogue I'd noted last time was all but gone, with the general-release run of the film taking place in the more bijou Screen 3 of my local (as opposed to the advance showing, in the massive Screen 5). Whether it was the same levels bouncing around a smaller room or a different speaker-balance, it goes to show how much film/audio presentation can vary, even within the same venue. [ BACK ]
*2 By which I mean intellectually and philosophically, not financially. The literal 'price of admission' for actual cinema viewing is both high, and frustratingly consistent over varying levels of artistic quality. But that's a grumble for another post. [ BACK ]
*3 Because you don't have to be a Ben Wheatley-nerd to enjoy the film's gunplay and humour, but at the same time it's not an action-movie and there's far more under the surface anyway. [ BACK ]
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
While it's a long, long way from the heavy ordnance and monosyllabic adrenaline of the likes of The Expendables, the setup for Ben Wheatley's Free Fire is still reassuringly low-concept: an illicit gun-deal in an abandoned Boston (MA) factory between a couple of Irish buyers (Cillian Murphy and Michael Smiley) and a South African seller (Sharlto Copley), brokered by a mutual contact (Brie Larson) and also attended by various henchmen on both sides. But when two of these subordinates recognise each other from an unresolved conflict, things quickly get out of hand. And when things get out of hand at a gun-deal, they're only heading one way...
As it goes, it's the second time in a week that I've watched Larson in a 70s-set flick featuring an overly-jukeboxed soundtrack. And the first of these didn't exactly leave a great taste in the mouth. Free Fire features a host of borderline-unlikeable, sketched in characters who remain barely developed for the most part, frequently mumbled and inaudible dialogue, a worryingly notable quantity of scripted 'quips' which left the audience silent though the subsequent laugh-gap, and a combination of lighting and editing that often makes it impossible to tell who's shooting at who (kind of the point of the film).
Also, I loved it.
The opposite side of the John Wick coin, the single gunfight makeing up the lion's share of the running time is the very antithesis of Hollywood Slick™. When bullets start flying, there are no trick-shots, gymnastics or one-hit kills. The shootout here is a long, drawn-out war of attrition with lucky hits and brute force doing most of the work and soundtracked (in this section where it matters*1) primarily by scuffling, breathless-complaining and fluent profanity. And that's not to say every line's a tightly engineered zinger (as I mentioned above), but it's certainly less of a sassy quote-fest and more representative of a deal between tired and angry middle-aged men, which began with poor organisation and went downhill from there.
From a writing point of view, it would have been very tempting to make at least one of the factions here the sort of loveable anti-heroes we've found in The Nice Guys. But writers Ben Wheatley and Amy Jump have kept in mind that these are people buying and selling guns, after all. The natural charisma of performers like Larson, Murphy, Smiley and Copley means they're inherently watchable without having the script cast too much judgement on them either way, and the humour veers between darkly-comic and violent-farce. Even that Armie Hammer's great fun in this, so the film's got to be doing a lot right*2.
Just what the doctor ordered after an emotionally taxing awards-season, Free Fire is a film that will bear re-watching because of the number of levels it works on. This is Ben Wheatley raising an eyebrow at the escalatingly ludicrous stream of action movies we enjoy, playing with the genre without being too acerbic at one end or getting too silly at the other. Nothing here is glamourised, but neither is it disparaged; the film takes its ridiculousness very seriously.
Because even if you examine the sandpit, you can still have a shit-ton of fun playing in it…
*1 The main drag isn't completely music-free as there is some deftly inserted John Denver to be heard. But that's a set-piece in itself, so easily clears the Jukebox Soundtrack hurdle. [ BACK ]
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Establishment-setup-reveal-punchline. Imagine, if you will, taking a recurring sketch from a weekly comedy show. For example, Lou and Andy from Little Britain. The sketch (pretty much any of them) is indeed funny in isolation, but it is formulaic. Establishment-setup-reveal-punchline. And that's fine, because that's how comedy works. Now imagine taking the Lou and Andy sketch from each of the eighteen series-episodes of Little Britain and playing them in continuous succession. Establishment-setup-reveal-punchline. Rinse and repeat.
That's why I gave up on the novel of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. A quiet scene would be eloquently and painstakingly set up, following which the arrival of a flesh-hungry ghoul would cause a catastrophic breakdown in etiquette and decorum as we're shown that the elegant young heroines of the piece are actually trained and efficient zombie killers! Funny the first time, smirk-inducing the second. Still happening fifty pages in? Forget it.
The only reason I mention this is that I'd feared the cinematic adaptation would fall into the same trap (and logically, why wouldn't it?). After all, a novel which was written in all earnestness but which was received largely as a quirky oddity isn't necessarily going to translate well to the screen. There are already more than enough iffy zombie movies, and the ones which also employ humour in their arsenal are worse than most. So as it turns out, the "hahaa it's funny because they've got swords and they're cutting zombies heads off at a ball!" motif actually only accounts for the first thirty minutes or so of the film. Half an hour in which an actual story is desperately struggling to break through every cliché you're expecting from the film. Now obviously much of this comes from the fact that Pride and Prejudice is the primary source-material for the story, so the stilted, formalities of the original have to play a large part, and they have to be broken by the zombie-element. But it's still like watching the same sketch five times.
Then after a while, the forced juxtaposition of narrative styles relaxes and director Burr Steers is able to bring us something more like the film that the zombie-fans are wanting to see. While the primary undead-outbreak has already long-since occurred at the start of the film and is sketched in fairly loosely in an opening-title sequence, the main plot centres around a resurgence which threatens to over-run the surviving population of ninteenth-century England. Truth be told, even when the film actually gets going, the plot is still relatively loose, relying more on style and setpieces to do its work.
Thankfully, the whole thing is shored up with a very competent cast, headed marvellously by Lily James and Sam Riley as Elizabeth Bennett and Mr Darcy, respectively. Younger players fill most of the main roles, and the film employs Charles Dance and Lena Heady to stand at the back and bring a bit of dramatic gravity to proceedings (although thankfully with a minimum of scenery-chewing). I should also mention how much I enjoyed Matt Smith as Mr Collins the Parson. It seems odd that in a film which relies so much on comedy, he's the only performer who seems to be able to deliver it fully.
Fans of Jane Austen will see this as a parodic curiosity, and fans of George Romero will doubtless feel the same way. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is ultimately its own worst enemy, and can't break free of one genre to adequately serve the other.
The film becomes a lot of fun, but can't take its tongue out of its cheek long enough to convince the audience it has anything worth saying…
Maybe it's the nature of the original source material, but even the addition of the undead doesn't make this particularly cinematic, no.
Probably, but only just.
No, but it was never really meant to be.
Nope.
Not that I heard.
Level 2: P+P+Z stars that Charles Dance and that Lena Heady, both of whom appear in that Game of Thrones alongside that Gwendoline 'Phasma' Christie.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Not really my usual fare, not least because the film's trailer failed to convince me, but Michelle Williams and Kristin Scott Thomas are always worth a punt, so it was off to the indie-arthouse cinema for a Sunday morning preview (yes, the same cinema that had all the monumentally rude people in it last time). As luck would have it, war films set in the 1940s attract a much better class of punter than those set in the 2000s, apparently.
And so, Suite Française sees the inhabitants of Paris being evacuated to the countryside following German bombing raids in 1940. As a sleepy rural town adjusts to its influx of new neighbours, they have to band together to face a greater challenge: the occupation of France by the Nazi forces, and a platoon of soldiers compulsorily stationed in their homes. Tensions rise further as some members of the community seem to be less reluctant than others to give the Germans a cold-welcome…
The good? Suite Française is a fantastic film about loyalty, regret, trust and pride. The dynamic between the townsfolk and their occupying-guests is clinically honest, showing people at their best and worst on both sides*1. Human nature is timeless, it would appear. I'm not sure if it's not a little British for a film set in France, though. That the cast speak largely with Home Counties accents doesn't impact the flow of the film at all (it's not 'Allo Allo, after all), but there's an edge of bitterness and quiet restraint that more usually appears in portrayals of stately homes in England. But like I said, human nature and all that.
The bad? I wasn't sold on the love-story, if I'm being honest (and neither was Mrs Blackout, and she has a far greater reservoir of wartime romantic literature/cinema references to draw upon than I do). It's not so much that I found the course of events unbelievable between Lucille (Michelle Williams), a reluctant landowner whose philandering husband has been drafted to the front-lines, and Bruno (Matthias Schoenaerts), a visiting Nazi officer who writes symphonies in his spare time and doesn't really like all that Being A Nazi stuff, despite Still Being A Nazi. And it's not that their respective portrayals are at fault, either. I just didn't buy the chemistry between them. Or, more to the point, I found the sociological story far more interesting than the romantic one.
Not quite destined for all-time-greatness, Suite Française is still a compelling watch and worth a Sunday afternoon viewing. But if that viewing is at home in about three months time, you probably won't lose too much in the transition…
Probably not unless you know it's your thing before you go in.
Rental, I reckon.
Not the absolute best, but never less than inherently watchable…
Partly.
Not at all.
There bloody isn't.
Michelle Williams starred in 2010's Shutter Island, as did Max Von Sydow, who's due to appear in Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
*1 It's worth keeping in mind that while Suite Française isn't a true story, it was written during the war by someone on the receiving end of the hardships, so it's very difficult to pass off as mere fiction on a tonal level.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
