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Free Fire
Premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival September 8,2016
Plot (Spoiler Alert)Boston 1978, a meeting in a deserted warehouse between two gangs turns into a shootout and the game is to survive. 
Blaine: Director Ben Wheatley has his ways of bringing the feeling of the ‘70s into his movies. “Free Fire” has everything that gives it a 70s feel to it like the style for one and the music for another. Ben did it with “High Rise” and he did the same thing with “Free Fire”. Ben is a big fan of action movies involving gun fire and explosions. Ben did some research on gun fights and battles and he found this transcript of a shootout in Miami in the ‘80s. He read it and thought it was a really crazy and that’s how “Free Fire” began. The whole movie takes place in one building and it has a great ensemble of actors shooting at each other and trying to survive being shot at. One of the things that was easy about making “Free Fire” was the cast and crew only had one location to shoot at. When filming a live action film you have travel to the locations you have chosen to shoot your film. But not “Free Fire”. Brie Larson even said that “Free Fire” was pretty much shot in order as the film goes. The cast looked clean at first, but as they continued shooting they had to get those nice clothes dirty because a shoot out is going on. I think all the actors had to do was act as though they are in a war zone. Armie Hammer really liked Ben Wheatley’s work and Armie feels that Ben does a great job with every movie he makes. Then the script for “Free Fire” came Armie’s way and he thought how bold Ben is taking a chance to shoot a movie that takes place in a enclosed space. Armie respected Ben for being prepared in knowing the positions of the camera and the actors in the building they shot at for each scene they did. That was important while the were making “Free Fire”. Ben knew his way around the place and wandering through it several times. Armie Hammer’s character, Ord, is someone I would say is very skilled with guns. He’s also someone who is all smiles half the time because he’s cracking trash talk jokes. Brie Larson is a huge fan of Ben Wheatley’s work and reading the script had the two things she loved so much. Really entertaining on the surface and then has something deeper underneath it. Brie said making “Free Fire” felt like this really long drawn out game of laser tag. Brie felt uncomfortable holding a gun and to her it felt like she was touching the one ring from “Lord of the Rings” which she didn’t like. The male actors knew their guns really well, but Brie knows nothing about guns, except they are dangerous, can hurt people and cause death. It was challenging for Brie to be working with a weapon on this project. Brie may not be good with guns, but she is very good at making the characters she plays strong females. Brie’s character, Justine, is so bad ass because she was written that way in the script, but I think Brie made Justine even stronger through her performance. Justine is the only female in the group and is the only one trying to keep everything calm and tries to reason with everyone in the warehouse. She’s on no one’s side, she’s in between the line basically. “Free Fire” has crazy humor. Like there’s a scene where a door opens with oxygen tanks on the other side and everyone is too busy shooting at each other that they don’t realize there are six or seven oxygen tanks on one side. Then a few bullets hit them and they go flying over the place. And then another scene is when big guy shows up and Jack Reynor’s character, Harry, tries to disarm his gun and beat him with a crow bar. But the guy is like an animal and has the strength of an elephant. He throws Harry over the van and I almost thought Harry might have broken his neck because I herd a snap and his head lands over the hood of the van. I couldn’t tell if every character in the film was going to die or there would be one survivor in the end. It’s hard to tell sometimes, even though this is a movie with people killing each other. Turns out the only female, Brie Larson, ends up being the survivor. However she’s not out of the woods yet for the police finally show up. And that’s how the movie ends. My rating on “Free Fire” is five out of five stars. “Free Fire” premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival 
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