Free Fire (Ben Wheatley)

JP Liz V1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_yyIfhhR8I

Great cast assembled for this dark comedy, looks like it is released next March though

charlie_says

Fan of his stuff. Thanks for heads up

JP Liz V1

Ben Wheatley, Jack Reynor and Cillian Murphy attending Audi Dublin International Film Festival 2017

JP Liz V1

I loved Armie Hammer and Sharlto Copley's characters the most, found it hard keeping track of who was shot and who shot who but it was enjoyable only negative for me was Brie Larson

Outlaw Pete

Yeah, I like Brie but she seemed like a round peg in a square hole here and it didn't appear as if she had all that much interest in being in the film. A first example of her trying to phone it in for me.

Perhaps she regretted taking the role and felt once shooting started that the film wasn't going to amount to much.

Enjoyed it mostly though.

Optimalprimerib

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

Yeah, I like Brie but she seemed like a round peg in a square hole here and it didn't appear as if she had all that much interest in being in the film. A first example of her trying to phone it in for me.

Perhaps she regretted taking the role and felt once shooting started that the film wasn't going to amount to much.

Enjoyed it mostly though.

So that's two in a row she has been terrible in. Curse of the Oscar.

Sad Professor

Larson is fine in it, but she's surrounded by male character actors who seem to have had their roles written just for them. It's not a particularly good role or Wheatley failed to adapt it to her as well he could have. Someone like Mary Elizabeth Winstead might have worked better.

two wheels good

charlie_says wrote: »

Fan of his stuff. Thanks for heads up

Film4 are running a Ben W. season at the moment. "A Field in England" tonight.

Fysh

Sad Professor wrote: »

Larson is fine in it, but she's surrounded by male character actors who seem to have had their roles written just for them. It's not a particularly good role or Wheatley failed to adapt it to her as well he could have. Someone like Mary Elizabeth Winstead might have worked better.

At the Q&A I saw, Wheatley said the role was originally smaller and they added bits to it during filming pretty much on the fly, so it probably explains why her role just feels like it's sort of incidental whereas the rest have been better developed.

I'm a big fan of Wheatley's films (more so the ones where he works with Amy Jump, if I'm honest) and Free Fire didn't disappoint me. A great mesh of dark humour and some fairly grisly shootout sequences.

pixelburp

Sad Professor wrote: »

Larson is fine in it, but she's surrounded by male character actors who seem to have had their roles written just for them. It's not a particularly good role or Wheatley failed to adapt it to her as well he could have. Someone like Mary Elizabeth Winstead might have worked better.

I was listening to an interview with Simon Mayo and it was revealed that Olivia Wilde was originally cast in Larsons role for this, but conflicting schedules forced her to drop out.

Sad Professor

That makes sense. Wilde would have perfect for it.

MilesMorales1

I loved it

sonic85

Just out from it and thought it was brilliant! Some great one liners in it and though the whole cast was great Sharlto Copley stood out for me!

Really good movie

Liam McPoyle

Saw it tonight.

Pretty meh for me.

I'm a big fan of Wheatley but I couldn't get into this, I don't think it knew what it was supposed to be.

Wasn't funny enough to be an action comedy.

Wasn't dark enough to be a black comedy.

Didn't have enough action to be an action movie.

I didn't like the dialogue and felt it felt hugely forced.

Pretty disappointed over all.

Noise Annoys

Pretty disappointed with this. I was enjoying it for the first 20 minutes or so but once the shooting started it fell apart. The characters were so roughly sketched that you weren't rooting for anyone, and the whole thing just dragged on and on. Bang! Ping! Zeooowww! For an hour. And the dialogue wasn't half as snappy and funny as I had been lead to believe.

I've really enjoyed Ben Wheatley's films in the past, but this and the only-OK High Rise have been let downs.

JP Liz V1

Fysh wrote: »

At the Q&A I saw, Wheatley said the role was originally smaller and they added bits to it during filming pretty much on the fly, so it probably explains why her role just feels like it's sort of incidental whereas the rest have been better developed.

I'm a big fan of Wheatley's films (more so the ones where he works with Amy Jump, if I'm honest) and Free Fire didn't disappoint me. A great mesh of dark humour and some fairly grisly shootout sequences.

Was Larson's character Justine not always set to survive and get the money so after teaming with Martin hiring other shooters i.e. Patrick Bergin's character and other dude, with that ending I thought the character was more thought out and developed

Arghus

Free Fire - I'll give some thought to attending any movie that makes it to my local cinemas that happens to be slapped with an extremely unfashionable these days 18's cert. Especially one directed by Ben Wheatly. And even more especially still if it promises nothin' less than endless gun porn and old school squibbing throughout. They don't make them that way anymore, well, they don't make a lot of them anyway, that's for sure.

So it's with a heavy heart that I have to report that I found Free Fire to be, at most, just merely adequate. It wasn't deranged enough to sweep me up in it's madness, nor was it dark enough for me to really feel the impact of any of the violence onscreen and - to be fair to the film - there is a LOT of violence. But none of it, aside from a few bits here and there, really matters a damn. The film is an endless litany of human shaped shooting targets jibbing and jabbering movie cliches, whilst getting shot at, endlessly, or so it felt, in the arse and arm or leg. And it isn't really as funny as it thinks it is.

The movie's personality is defined by the fact that it just is one big shootout and at first that novelty is pretty entertaining, but instead of obtaining a transcendentally shallow purity, it just remains on the whole largely shallow. And static - most of the duration of the film consists of the fleshier parts of the set taking and talking about taking lead, without any compensating forward momentum in the story. There is no story effectively, just bang, bang shoot shoot. I could accept that, but I found large stretches of it to be pretty boring - the characters are all ciphers, spouting ridiculous, but also kind of blandly familiar movie tough guy one liners. It's pretty hard to actively root for any one person on screen over any other. All this of course would largely be forgivable if the film had a visual panache to cover up its vacuousness, but, sadly, it largely does not. I thought the gun battles were pretty perfunctory: middlingly choreographed and shot and edited in a manner that didn't lend itself to clarity.

I wouldn't say the movie hasn't got anything in it's favor - Sharlto Copley plays an arrogant and idiotic asshole fairly well; Michael Smiley is always watchable, even if largely wasted; there are a few gnarly deaths and snippets of grisly violence scattered throughout that do actually satisfy, but it's definitely a case of quantity over quality. And that's the movie pretty much: under-cooked overkill. A high concept idea, that never becomes something more than that and given who is involved that is a bit of a shame.

Saw it last night. Loved it.

Tony EH

Don't know what it is about Ben Wheatley. I like what he does, but I'm nearly always left in two minds about his stuff. I still think 'Down Terrace' is his best film. It's the one that remains the most consistently enjoyable throughout. I was on board for 'Kill List' til it went all "Dennis Wheatley" at the end and I was sort of meh about 'High Rise', but I probably need to give that another spin TBH. Same goes for 'Sightseers'.

Fysh

Tony EH wrote: »

Don't know what it is about Ben Wheatley. I like what he does, but I'm nearly always left in two minds about his stuff. I still think 'Down Terrace' is his best film. It's the one that remains the most consistently enjoyable throughout. I was on board for 'Kill List' til it went all "Dennis Wheatley" at the end and I was sort of meh about 'High Rise', but I probably need to give that another spin TBH. Same goes for 'Sightseers'.

Sightseers doesn't really fit with the rest of his films as he didn't write it, and tbh it shows - there's far too little meat on its bones to actually hold up as a feature film, and even at 80 minutes long it felt drawn out.

What do you make of A Field In England?

buried

Ahh man, "A Field In England" is one of my favourite films of all time. It's so f**king brilliant and otherworldly. I hadn't heard of Wheatley till that, seen 'Kill List' afterwards and thought it was alright but I didn't like 'High Rise' at all. I have a conspiracy theory going on in my brain that says Hollywood seen " A Field In England" and then decided to drag Wheatley into its generic Hollywood world of absolute unimaginative muck

Tony EH

Fysh wrote: »

Sightseers doesn't really fit with the rest of his films as he didn't write it, and tbh it shows - there's far too little meat on its bones to actually hold up as a feature film, and even at 80 minutes long it felt drawn out.

What do you make of A Field In England?

I liked it, the setting is great and I liked where it goes (if you know what I mean). For some reason keep attributing that film to Shane Meadows. :rolleyes: Probably cos I saw it in a double bill with 'Dead Man's Shoes'?

Like 'High Rise', I think I need to give it another go though. TBH, right off the bat I can't recall much of it at all.

Agree with 'Sightseers'. It's ok, but sommats off and at the end I'm like "Right, that's over."

looie

buried wrote: »

Ahh man, "A Field In England" is one of my favourite films of all time. It's so f**king brilliant and otherworldly. I hadn't heard of Wheatley till that, seen 'Kill List' afterwards and thought it was alright but I didn't like 'High Rise' at all. I have a conspiracy theory going on in my brain that says Hollywood seen " A Field In England" and then decided to drag Wheatley into its generic Hollywood world of absolute unimaginative muck

It's the only film of his that I've gone back to. Such an unsettling masterpiece.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNTFFPfgg_Y

Looper007

Tony EH wrote: »

I liked it, the setting is great and I liked where it goes (if you know what I mean). For some reason keep attributing that film to Shane Meadows. :rolleyes: Probably cos I saw it in a double bill with 'Dead Man's Shoes'?

Like 'High Rise', I think I need to give it another go though. TBH, right off the bat I can't recall much of it at all.

Agree with 'Sightseers'. It's ok, but sommats off and at the end I'm like "Right, that's over."

Got to admit I love Ben Wheatley's film's and think he's one of the best Director's working today, but I can see why some don't really love his films. His films definitely are opinion splitting and they aren't everyone's cup of tea.

Still think A Field in England is one of most interesting film's of recent years. Loved Kill List (feel's like the modern day Wicker Man) and Sightseers (any film that turns Nuts in May into a murder spree gets thumbs up from me :pac:). Down Terrace is a interesting debut. High Rise, is not my favourite but it's still his most visual pleasing film and still a strong film plus Luke Evan's is fantastic in it.

His remake of Wages of Fear with an all female cast will definitely be interesting. At least with Wheatley you can't say he makes the same movie twice, from gangster film, Horror, Comedy, Action. His Wife Amy Jump deserves as much praise too, she writes some fantastic stuff. Loved Free Fire too.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Looper007 wrote: »

His remake of Wages of Fear with an all female cast will definitely be interesting. At least with Wheatley you can't say he makes the same movie twice, from gangster film, Horror, Comedy, Action.

His next one is about monsters that roam the streets at night and the specialist police force that hunt them down, starring Alicia Vikander and Armie Hammer. Another swerve in genre, sounds like.

Harry Palmr

Speaking of Ben Weatley, High Rise was the last film I saw, being a bit of a fan of vintage urban dystopias I thought I'd make sure to see this when it popped up on Film4 the other week. Ultimately I liked it but for a while there it was hard going, Weatley is obviously a chap who has watched a lot of films and I suspect his taste in them is second to none but in the case of this film it's clear he was a bit too much in thrall to, in no particular order Stanley Kubrick, Nic Roeg and David Cronenberg. I dunno about all his films but it felt a bit too much like an exercise in style, luckily the cast was great and they got me "into" the film after about 25 minutes. The use of CGi for the towers and the carpark annoyed me I have to say, how hard is it to go out and photograph actual structures and textural detail and then render new images? Or heaven forfend built some high quality miniatures?

Sad Professor

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Speaking of Ben Weatley, High Rise was the last film I saw, being a bit of a fan of vintage urban dystopias I thought I'd make sure to see this when it popped up on Film4 the other week. Ultimately I liked it but for a while there it was hard going, Weatley is obviously a chap who has watched a lot of films and I suspect his taste in them is second to none but in the case of this film it's clear he was a bit too much in thrall to, in no particular order Stanley Kubrick, Nic Roeg and David Cronenberg. I dunno about all his films but it felt a bit too much like an exercise in style, luckily the cast was great and they got me "into" the film after about 25 minutes. The use of CGi for the towers and the carpark annoyed me I have to say, how hard is it to go out and photograph actual structures and textural detail and then render new images? Or heaven forfend built some high quality miniatures?

CGI is way cheaper. And it's just now things are done now. While it was a big step up for Wheatley and looks expensive, High-Rise was still a very low budget film. At one of the Q&As he talked about how it was great to be able to do dolly, crane shots, etc, which he usually can't afford to do.

Harry Palmr

CGI just yells cheap far too often to me unfortunately. And when it's bad it very bad indeed. Speaking of which I caught some of Titanic last weekend just as the ship ploughs into the iceberg - looked terrible which in 1997 was not the case. Digital technology really does age quickly whereas a good model shot or matte painting will always be good.

Tony EH

Harry Palmr wrote: »

CGI just yells cheap far too often to me unfortunately. And when it's bad it very bad indeed. Speaking of which I caught some of Titanic last weekend just as the ship ploughs into the iceberg - looked terrible which in 1997 was not the case. Digital technology really does age quickly whereas a good model shot or matte painting will always be good.

There's nearly always a charm to physical effects that will always be there, even when you figure out how it's done. Sometimes, it's not the case, but most of the time the charm remains.

That doesn't seem to be the case with digital media.

Plus matte painting really is a dying art in cinema. The stuff created for Star Wars or Indiana Jones still wows me.

But as the prof says it's just cheaper to "stick it trough the machine" as it were.

Don't get me wrong, I think there's great talent at work in digital effects. Golum still impresses me and the apes in the new Planet of the Apes series are fantastic. But there's still such a long way to go and they are often dating badly as we speak.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

^ It always surprises me how effects in something like Jurassic Park or even Casper haven't aged as badly as much more recent films. It sometimes feels like effects peaked at some point in the 90's and nobody realised it so they've kept going until they completely lost sight of what worked.

The Black Oil

The interview (mentioned by pixelburp) with Ben Wheatley was the only promotion I heard for this. I was disappointed, underwhelming. Felt it offered very little. Some elements worked, but they were so easy to forget about.

Fysh

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

^ It always surprises me how effects in something like Jurassic Park or even Casper haven't aged as badly as much more recent films. It sometimes feels like effects peaked at some point in the 90's and nobody realised it so they've kept going until they completely lost sight of what worked.

It's the normalisation effect - Jurassic Park had months of dedicated work on the CGI which was built on top of quite a lot of practical effect groundwork. Whereas these days every film production can get access to a few weeks of render time and commercial or even free software packages in which to create the models, which is great in terms of availability of the tools but terrible in terms of making sure that the same amount of money, time and care is put into the effects. Some filmmakers use it well, others just throw the bare minimum of time and budget at it, because the argument seems to be "Monsters had great CGI for no budget so why do I have to spend money on it?" without realising that films like Monsters make up for lack of budget with added time and inventiveness.

Looper007

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

His next one is about monsters that roam the streets at night and the specialist police force that hunt them down, starring Alicia Vikander and Armie Hammer. Another swerve in genre, sounds like.

Plenty of big names definitely want to work with him. Yeah he also has a comic book film called Hard Boiled on the cards, along with Wages of Fear remake. He doesn't take long making his films either, he was editing High Rise while he was shooting Free Fire. Amazing really.

Chain Smoker

I feel like the general consensus is that Sightseers is more Alice Lowe and Steve Oram's film than Ben Wheatley's.

Sad Professor

I think the un-Wheatleyness of Sightseers is being overstated. They aren't credited, but Wheatley and his wife re-wrote Sightseers, and there was a lot of improvisation.

Chain Smoker

Sad Professor wrote: »

I think the un-Wheatleyness of Sightseers is being overstated. They aren't credited, but Wheatley and his wife re-wrote Sightseers, and there was a lot of improvisation.

Improvisation would surely lend itself towards the performers rather than the director?
Regardless, I've not seen enough Wheatley (yet) to know what his style is, I'm just going on how reviews for it as Prevenge have read.

Sad Professor

Chain Smoker wrote: »

Improvisation would surely lend itself towards the performers rather than the director?
Regardless, I've not seen enough Wheatley (yet) to know what his style is, I'm just going on how reviews for it as Prevenge have read.

I don't know how Wheatley does it, but generally speaking improvisation is very collaborative. It's rarely just the actor driving it, and even when it is, it gets filtered through the director who decides whether to indulge them. Since it results in more decisions being made on set, it gives the director more creative control.

pixelburp

Guys, given how quiet the Free Fire thread is, shouldn't this Wheatley discussion be moved there? I think so IMO, might indicate there's actually plenty of chat going on about his film(s).

Sad Professor

pixelburp wrote: »

Guys, given how quiet the Free Fire thread is, shouldn't this Wheatley discussion be moved there? I think so IMO, might indicate there's actually plenty of chat going on about his film(s).

But this is the Free Fire thread.

Looper007

Loved it, although don't understand why it got a 18 rating as aside from

Sam Riley character getting his head smashed up by a van's wheel

I've seen more violent films that got 16. It's a far more funnier film then I was expecting.

Definitely Sharlto Copley African gunrunner and Sam Riley's junkie brother in law of Smiley's IRA man, were the stand outs. Always great to see Cillian Murphy in a film. But everyone involved gave great performances. The violence is used to more comic effect. And the use of John Denver's Song of Annie is perfect to one of the films standout scene's. Probably Wheatley's most commercial effort to date and well worth checking out.

You could tell Wheatley and the producers had to big up Brie Larson's part after they probably hired her before her Oscar win and Captain Marvel role. She's far better in this then in the recent Kong Skull Island film. But I wonder if she would have signed on for this if she was offered it before she hit big.

Looking at the IFCO site (which is f*cking awful), it does say that there are strong drugs, violence, and language. Unfortunately, it wouldn't go into as much detail as the BBFC. Odd that they gave it an 18s here, where it received a 15s in the UK.

Mr E

I didn't think it deserved an 18s cert. I wonder if exceeding a quota of bad language pushed it out of the 16s bracket?

I love the BBFC's report -

FREE FIRE is a crime drama set in 1970s Boston, about a gun sale which goes wrong.

VIOLENCE
There is frequent strong violence, including several bloody impacts from shootings and a brief but gory image of a man's head after it's been run over by a van.

LANGUAGE
Frequent strong language ('f**k', 'motherf**ker', 'c**ksucker') as well as milder terms including 'bull****' and 'asshole'. There are also several discriminatory terms, including '******' and 'retard'.

DRUGS
Drug misuse includes a man smoking heroin from tin foil and a man smoking a joint.

There are also occasional crude verbal sex references, including a conversation about masturbation and a man claiming to have "come hard" in a woman's mouth.

ancapailldorcha

The Black Oil wrote: »

The interview (mentioned by pixelburp) with Ben Wheatley was the only promotion I heard for this. I was disappointed, underwhelming. Felt it offered very little. Some elements worked, but they were so easy to forget about.

I knew nothing about this and only saw a short trailer for it when seeing something else at a local Cineworld. I went in and thought it started very strongly. I loved the initial banter and thought the characters were great. Then it went very abruptly downhill and

degenerated into some basic shouting, insults and crawling around.

Disappointing overall which is a shame considering the very strong start.

Beric Dondarrion

Not a huge fan of Ben Wheatley. Really wanted to like High Rise but found it just OK. Went to see this and thought it started very well but it kind of ran out of steam somewhere in the third act for me.