Film Analysis – 'Free Fire' / Jamie Pitcher / Film Studies / 19/09/2017
The film
itself features an illegal gun sale being made by an anonymous party to the
IRA, the general plot is that something goes wrong and the entire situation
deteriorates, this leads to the directors interpretation of what an actual gun
fight would look like. It is quite easy to see, even early on in the film that
the director was trying for something new, through his own independent research
he learned that most gun fights aren’t at all like those featured in most
thrillers/action movies, instead most shots fired actually miss or just
(slightly) injure the targets being fired upon, by throwing in slight comedic
qualities with the overall tension of a gun fight, ‘Free Fire’ was born.
The film
itself really captures that 1980’s aesthetic with the colourful, ‘hip’ clothes
worn by each character which only adds to the fun as they are gradually scuffed
and torn to pieces by the oncoming bullets; the film is not to be taken
seriously as the characters, still intent on killing one another, tend to throw
some witty banter in each other’s direction, this gives the film an interesting
dynamic as you gradually grow to love each of their personalities and
eventually get confused with who your rooting for.
The film
itself has a running time of 90 minutes yet the set stays the same for almost
the entire film, the director likely did this to create a sense of feeling
trapped whilst also allowing the viewer to become more familiar with the area in
which the fight is taking place, this really intrigued me, as the viewer I began
to picture the entire conflict differently, being able to tell where each
character is at almost any time almost allows you to predict how any future
movement will turn out, this ultimately made me feel more involved with the
story and in turn, with the characters acting it out. Whilst the main body of
the film is featured within only one (relatively large, open) set, the
story/setting never seems to get boring, the sense of mortality that is applied
to each and every character kept me (the viewer) on the edge of my seat for
almost all of the film’s duration. This film contains a rather large amount of
mature humour and graphic violence, ‘Vernon’, played by Sharlto Copley (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharlto_Copley
) is personally one of my favourite characters, simply because presents such an
aura of vulgarity, self-confidence, selfishness and greed, he quickly becomes
one of the most entertaining aspects of this movie; however his character also
represents what drives this conflict, his self-indulgent belief that he should
win seems to act as a violent catalyst and ultimately gives this film the
strength to continue.
A good film I
could relate to ‘Free Fire’ would be the incredible title, ‘Saving Private Ryan’;
much like ‘Free Fire’, ‘Saving Private Ryan’ presents its characters with
seemingly very real threats. The bullets and strikes feel as though they have a
weight to them as they dash across the screen and collide with solid surfaces
or human bodies, this is also a very good example of the (digital) effects used
within ‘Free Fire’ to give it the enriching appeal of realistic combat and what
mainly won me over as a viewer, (In short, this film features riveting fight
scenes, good (mature) comedic themes, however it was slightly lacking a deeper
plot which I feel could have given this film the 5 star rating it truly
deserves).
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