Free Fire is an outrageous little movie. It shouldn’t be as entertaining as it is. This hilarious gun-deal-turned-shoot-out is provocative and cathartic, with cartoonish violence aimed mostly for laughs. It’s Tarantino, but straight-slapstick.
It would be reasonable to think a movie that consists almost completely of people shooting each other would become tedious, not to mention a little hard to watch considering the unimaginable spate of mass shootings constantly featured in the news. Director Ben Wheatley and writer Amy Jump – who co-wrote the script together – pull it off, though. Set in 1978, the movie begins with two factions traveling to a Boston warehouse to complete an illegal weapons deal. An intermediary, Justine, represents the buyers: a group of IRA members, led by Chris, who want firearms for use against their enemies in The Troubles. Justine’s colleague, Ord, is bringing the seller, a South African gun runner named Vernon, who is accompanied by his own group of associates. An uneasy tension hangs in the air as all the interested parties, ten people total, attempt to exchange cash for guns.
Read more...
Director Lenny Abrahamson’s film Room is an incredibly intimate study of the resiliency of the human psyche. The movie – based on author Emma Donoghue’s award winning 2010 novel of the same name – is bleak and tragic while being simultaneously hopeful and life affirming. It’s also an intense character study that churns the stomach with suspense, all without feeling exploitative. The craftsmanship of the movie on a technical level, from the beautiful cinematography to the heart-breaking performances, is of the highest quality.
Room tells the story of Joy and her five-year-old son, Jack. Joy was abducted as a teenager by a man she and Jack call Old Nick, who holds them in a shed about the size of a prison cell they both refer to simply as “Room.” Joy hasn’t been outside Room in seven years, and it’s all Jack has ever known. Old Nick routinely rapes Joy, and Jack is the product of one of those assaults. The story is fiction, but author Donoghue was inspired to write it after hearing the horrific true life details of survivor Elisabeth Fritzl, whose story is also disturbingly similar to those of the three young women recently kidnapped and imprisoned by Ariel Castro. Room details Joy’s attempt to get Jack out, and the aftermath of her plan.
