Free Fire hits more than it misses

Brie Larson in Free Fire. Image courtesy A24.

The central joke behind Free Fire is very clever. It’s a comedy of errors, a group of hard gangsters pushed to the boiling point only to reveal how terrible they are at actually being gangsters. And, for a while there, the joke sticks and the very dark punchline earns the guffaws writer/director Ben Wheatley and co-writer Amy Jump seek. That is until the end of the second act when the joke grows stale and the plot is dragged forward to reach the 90 minute mark for a movie with a 60 minute plot. Screams of agony are only funny for so long.

But, again, for a while there everything works pretty well thanks to the simplicity of the concept. Stick a bunch of gangsters played by reliable character actors (Cillian Murphy, Sam Riley, Sharlto Copley, Armie Hammer, Michael Smiley, Babou Ceesay and Noah Taylor) along with an A-list starlet (Brie Larson) in a room, allow tempers to boil over during an awkward gun deal, and watch as the situation goes out of control. The joke of it comes after the tension devolves into violence, and its revealed that every single person in that room is a terrible shot. In lieu of actually killing the other guys, they keep hitting calves and ankles and shoulders and feet, places that don't prevent others from shooting back but limit movements to agonizing shuffles and crawls. (The mouths rarely stop screaming, bellowing, cursing or some combination of the three.) That every character in Free Fire has what appears to be infinite ammo results in a video game reality mixed with the darkest undertones of a slapstick comedy routine.

Wheatley and Jump get a lot of mileage out of that concept by first earning the sloppy violence with effective tension building. They set up the scenario well enough that any one thing could trigger a bloodbath, whether it’s the lack of trust between the gun sellers and buyers; personality conflicts among Copley, Murphy, Hammer and Smiley; the isolated location offering little escape; or the abundance of John Denver music. Pragmatic business reasons would be a little too logical for Free Fire; Wheatley and Jump prefer to set things up with a mix of fate and machismo completely unrelated to the deal. It makes sense given the context and nature of the situation; it's far easier to compromise on business than it is on ego and blind loyalty to idiots.

Free Fire works long enough to offer a generally favorable rating. It is often hilarious watching this group of tough guys launch invectives and vomit bullets at one another, their jokes and mocks interspersed with the aforementioned screams. The cast sells the hell out of it, reveling in both the physical pain and the pain of their insults. Hammer in particular appears to have the most fun as a very dry fellow who cares little about the people around him; his loyalty is based solely on money, making him a moderately independent agent who shoots one side while insulting the other. But there's a built-in limit to the premise. At some point the bullets have to start hitting their targets and people have to die to advance the plot forward. Free Fire's humor drops as its accuracy increases, the stakes becoming a little too real. Wheatley and Jump try to make up for it by heightening the violence to make the situation more ridiculous, but it comes across as more mean spirited than the violently silly tone the film has for its first half. Free Fire stops being fun as it evolves into a traditional crime film with the unhappy endings for all involved. It's not an unfair fate for the players involved, but it isn't an overly interesting one either.

The pragmatic but unimaginative ending is one of the signs that Wheatley and Jump didn't quite have a full grasp on their project. They needed a more interesting direction for the film to take after the violence loses its humorous punch, but what they have is more over the top lunacy than interesting. Ultimately there isn't really enough going on to make 90 minutes work easily, so the movie ends more on a whimper than a bang. There remains a lot to like about Free Fire, but it still leaves viewers feeling a little unsatisfied.

Review: Three and a half out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: R

Run time: 90 minutes

Genre: Action

Ask Away

Target audience: Shoot 'em up fans and people down for some real dark comedy.

Take the whole family?: Nope.

Theater or Netflix?: It's fun for a night at home, but not worth a trip out to the cinema.

How Boston is this film?: Not as much as one would suspect. Despite being set in the city, there is a surprising dearth of proper Boston accents or even the city's personalities. The two supposed local boys are both played by British actors, and they lack the unfounded bravado hinted at in a proper Boston accent.

Watch this as well?: Reservoir Dogs remains the pinnacle movie about gangsters stuck in a garage waiting for fate to play out. Also something worth at least an interesting glance are the Clive Owen vehicle Shoot 'Em Up and one of the more underappreciated films from 2016, The Nice Guys.

Follow me on Twitter @EricMungenast

It's ever so hard to keep up appearances amid the zombie apocalypse

Lily James stars in "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies." Image courtesy Sony Pictures Entertainment.

“Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” technically offers everything its title says it will. The gist of the plot from “Pride and Prejudice” are there along with the characters and the drama they create, and the film chucks in a few zombies to make things a little ghastlier than the Jane Austen novel had to offer. It delivers what it promises, but the quality in which it does so is mediocre and dry, the two genres conflicting frequently and the poor special effects and cheapness spoiling the whole affair like uninvited zombies at a dinner party. They always take the best brains first.

Following the footsteps of the zombiefied adaptation of the Austen novel, “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” concerns social engagements of the five Bennet sisters: Elizabeth (Lily James), Jane (Bella Heathcote), Lydia (Ellie Bamber), Mary (Millie Brady) and Kitty (Suki Waterhouse). The last three are of little import to this story and shoved off to the sidelines to be plot devices; it’s the first tow their mother (Sally Phillips) tries to promote to suitors. It doesn't take too long for Heathcote to catch the eye of the exorbitantly wealthy Mr. Bingley (Douglas Booth), and the two fall into love immediately during one of several party sequences. James though is a little more sarcastic and independent than the other Bennet women, making it a little more difficult to find a proper husband. One suitor, Booth's friend Mr. Darcy, (Sam Riley), is a little too blunt and standoffish; the other, George Wickham (Jack Huston), exceeds his rival in charm but lacks a sense of integrity and harbors mysterious designs toward the James. Parson Collins (a very hammy Matt Smith), a cousin of the family, also pursues James' hand with little success.

All that only covers the first three words of the film's title. The last two lurk around the edges of the story; as the film explains it, a zombie outbreak that swept through England has returned with a vengeance and threatens the future of the country.  Fortunately, the Bennet women are very well trained in fighting the undead, as is Riley's Darcy, who spends much of the film stabbing or bludgeoning things with sharp objects. Still the zombies, many of whom can speak and maintain their British mannerisms, are forming a master plan to take over London for good, and it might be up to James and Riley to stop it.

You'd figure adding the threat of the walking dead to this scenario would perhaps add a heightened sense of urgency to the proceedings; after all, any romantic moment has the potential to be curtailed easily by a surprise zombie bite. But “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” never takes expediency into account, leaving the audience to wait for the characters to finally reach the proverbial fireworks factory. The fact that reaching said goal often results in low-quality action sequences and poorly rendered zombie kills makes everything all the more disappointing.

“Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” is a rather frustrating film not because it has any real chance of being good – the premise and the February release date make that a high improbability – but because it does retain a chance to be interesting. Yet it rarely even rises to that level, with the genres conflicting so heavily the more appealing parts of both are lost in the process. Adding the zombie subplot cuts down on the amount of screen time afforded to the Bennet sisters, whereas the slow burn of the period drama sucks the life out of the zombie film (pun quasi-intended). Writer/director Burr Steers does have one scene where the two meld together, although it happens to be a moment with nary a zombie in sight.

The main issue is wide lacuna between the quality of the two films within “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.” The Austen half is fine; it's hard to go too wrong with the “Pride and Prejudice” formula and there is a reason why the book is so revered. The zombie film, though, is dreadful, over-the-top and well-trod, relying too much on the novelty of the idea to carry it. The film especially rings hollow when the zombie-film dialogue infects the Austen-inspired prose, effectively eliminating whatever verisimilitude remains from the film universe. “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” has two audiences it needs to serve, and its efforts to satisfy both renders the entire project as a silly, asinine pipe dream.

Review: Two and a half out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: PG-13

Run time: 118 minutes (One hour and 48 minutes)

Genre: Action

Ask Away

Target audience: Viewers searching for something tacky heading into Valentine’s Day.

Take the whole family?: Stick with the rating for this one; it has all sorts of blood and body parts splattering across the screen.

Theater or Netflix?: Might as well wait for it for the streaming options.

Does the film maintain its feminist bona fides?: On the surface it does; the women in it do defend themselves on a frequent basis, and it does pass the Bechdel Test. Then again, the female characters often lack complexity – the zombification removes vital character development for the Bennet sisters – and director Burr Steers' camera has a habit of ogling his female stars whenever possible. It's arguable and it would make for a fun essay, but I lean toward the film being more about objectification than independence.

Watch this instead?: “Shaun of the Dead” remains the highlight of the nascent and ill-explored RomZomCom genre, a wonderful mix of horror, comedy and romance with just a dash of British humor too . How's that for a slice of fried gold?