Surprise! Ben Wheatley & Amy Jumps' chatty action movie, FREE FIRE, is good, nasty fun

First off, there's the ace cast. After their last abortive collaboration on High-Rise (which also sported a very good cast), this newest effort of the writing/directing team Amy Jump and Ben Wheatley -- FREE FIRE -- turns out to be the most downright entertaining of their work thus far. It's empty as hell, regarding any meaning that might be ascertained, but watching and listening to the actors assembled here strut their very impressive stuff is certainly worth the 90 minutes of screen time. You'll snicker (enjoyably) at much of the dialog, and keep your eyes wide open at the action/visuals.

Mr. Wheatley (shown at left) and Ms Jump enjoy combining humor (usually very dark) with violence (often rather ultra), but here -- perhaps because of their cast of criminal characters, a couple of these semi-classy, most of them not -- though much of the action, once it begins, is full of gunfire, the violence seems rather toned down, while the humor is dark, yet little more than you might expect from folk such as these.

The plot entails an illegal arms deal gone bad, first via some uncontrollable rage among the participants, then later from an out-and-out betrayal. Who is responsible for the latter remains a mystery for quite awhile, adding to our interest, which is already piqued by the smart ensemble cast.

The actors include a nice mix of British/Irish/Aussie/South African/American actors -- from the up-and-very-coming Jack Reynor (above, center) to Cillian Murphy (below, left),  Sharlto Copley, Noah Taylor (above, right), a bushy-bearded Armie Hammer (above, left) and Brie Larson -- plus a lot more, all of whom are first-rate.

Jump and Wheatley have jiggered their often quite comic dialog very nicely to fit each actor so that we learn what we need to -- both plot- and character-wise -- from the plentiful words that keeping sprouting like vinegar-laced popcorn from the actors on hand. We soon know who these people are and why literally none of them are to be trusted nor cared much about. Which of course makes what happens to them go down all the more easily.

Mr. Copley, above, left, does a bang-up job as a sleazebag overly concerned with his new suit, while Ms Larson, below, as the lone woman in the crew, runs the gamut from would-be romantic heroine to me-first moll who's better with gun-play than foreplay.

Actually, just about everyone here is a very lousy shot, and considering how much ammunition is expended in the course of the film (oodles, really), it takes an awfully long time to waste the game cast. But the wasting is relatively fun, overall. Who remains -- and how and why -- is usually tricky and enjoyable in this genre of film, and so it is here. I make no great claims for the movie, but for what it is, it certainly delivers the goods. (That's Sam Riley, below, as perhaps the dumbest and most problematic of a generally dim crew.)

From A24, Free Fire opens nationwide tomorrow, Friday, April 21. Here in South Florida you can find it at the following theaters: Aventura Mall 24, Aventura,; Miami Lakes 17, Miami Lakes,  Cobb Hialeah Grand 18, Hialeah; South Beach 18, Miami Beach; iPic, North Miami Beach; Intracoastal 8, North Miami Beach; Sunset Place 24, South Miami; Cinepolis Grove 15, Coconut Grove; Kendall Village Stadium 16, Miami; Southland Mall Stadium 16, Miami; CMX Brickell City Center 10, Miami; Oakwood 18, Hollywood; Coral Ridge 10, Ft. Lauderdale; Cypress Creek 16, Ft. Lauderdale; Sawgrass 23, Sunrise; Magnolia Place 16, Coral Springs; Pompano Beach 18, Pompano Beach; T-Bird Drive In, Fort Lauderdale; Silverspot Coconut Creek Cinemas, Coconut Creek; City Place 20, West Palm Beach; Royal Palm Beach 18, Royal Palm Beach; Cinepolis, Jupiter 14, Jupiter; Mizner Park 8, Theatres, Boca Raton, and the Cinemark Palace 20, Boca Raton. To find a theater near wherever you are, click here.

HIGH-RISE: Ben Wheatley/Amy Jump's version of the J.G. Ballard novel hits screens

Ben Wheatley -- he of those very violent movies Down Terrace, Kill List and Sightseers and then of the more modulated, explorative and interesting (though somewhat violent) A Field in England -- is back, this time bringing to the screen a novel about the collapse-of-civilization-in-microcosm by J.G. Ballard that he has directed, the screenplay for which has been adapted by Wheatley's partner Amy Jump. The movie is HIGH-RISE, and I have to say that it is a colossal failure by almost any standard against which you'd care to measure.

Visually arresting (for a time, at least) and sporting an ensemble cast of relatively big names, the movie boasts certainly the largest budget with which Wheatley, shown at right, has yet been allowed to play. Leading the ensemble is Tom Hiddleston, below (in a shot that should give you some idea of the classy design scheme the movie offers), as a successful doctor who has recently moved into a semi-spectacular high-rise building, in and on which the penthouse and roof offer things nearly unseen anywhere else. (You may note, however, that as the building deteriorates, it does not seem to be the same structure that we saw earlier, at least not where that penthouse and roof are concerned.)

Wheatley is known for his semi-original crushing of dark comedy and ultra-violence (Down Terrace and Sightseers, particularly). Almost any comic factor has leeched out of High-Rise so we are left with Wheatley and Jump's usual cast of of characters that we care little for or about. While this is all to the good, considering what happens to most of them in all of Wheatley's movies, it doesn't do much for our overall enjoyment of his films. Without characters to care about, there is far too little at stake.

Other occupants of the high-rise include Sienna Miller (above) as a slutty single mom and Elizabeth Moss (below, with Hiddleston) who plays a constantly pregnant woman dragging around a huge brood of kids. Add this role to the one Moss is most famous for (remember that first season of Mad Men?), and you have an actress taking her pregnant characters to new heights (or depths).

Every apartment building ought to have its macho man, and here that role is played by a heavily mustached Luke Evans (below), who pulls out all the stops in the manliness and stupidity departments (though, in truth, most everyone else here proves pretty stupid, too). The film's plot, if it has any, simply shows us the destruction of the entitled upper class and working class aspirants, yet adds nothing to what we've already seen, from Pinter/Losey's The Servant onwards.

Jeremy Irons (below) plays the guy in charge of it all, a surprisingly fit senior citizen, but his character, too, proves a big nothing, about whom the most important thing may be that he likes the color white. His nutty wife is essayed by the always interesting Keeley Hawes (shown at right two photos below with Sienna Guillory), who is interesting here, too, and is given a good deal of screen time to little avail.

High-Rise may be the biggest waste of my time so far this year. Wheatley's stock-in-trade would seem to be pushing the envelope violence-wise, and this grows increasingly tiresome. Yes, there are some classy visuals here, too, and that evidently is enough for some critics to view and then imagine that they're watching a good movie. I hope Mr. Wheatley goes back to something more edifying like his best work, A Field in England.

Mr. Hiddleston, below, acquits himself as well as possible under these tiresome circumstances. What a sexy, classy and talented actor he is. Compare his work as Loki (in the Thor films) with his performances in The Deep Blue Sea and Only Lovers Left Alive, and you'll wish for better roles for him soon. (I hear he is very good in the current cable series The Night Manager.)

Meanwhile, High-Rise -- from Magnolia Pictures and running a way-too-long two hours -- opens on VOD, Amazon Video and iTunes this Thursday, April 28, and then theatrically around the U.S. on Friday, May 13. Click here to view currently scheduled playdates, with all cities and theaters listed.  

Ben Wheatley's dour SIGHTSEERS opens, offering life and death and dolts and dogs

Ben Wheatley's back. The unique (if that's quite the right word) filmmaker who, in 2009, graced (that is definitely not the right word) us with the "family" film Down Terrace, and in 2011 gave us the genre-jumping (while occasionally tripping over those genres) Kill List, is back again with SIGHTSEERS, a lovers-on-holiday movie that is closer in form and spirit to his first film than his second, as these lovers are (or eventually become) murderous sociopaths. And the audience has reams of fun watching them do it. Well, some audiences, anyway....

If you detect a note of distance in TrustMovies' mild appreciation of Mr. Wheatley's work, you're on the mark. (You can read my review of his earlier two films by clicking on the appropriate links in the paragraph above and then scrolling down.) Wheatley, shown at left, is relatively original, I'll give him that. You probably won't mistake his work for that of another filmmaker's. He's dark and dirty and comedic, but he doesn't seem to want to hang around the usual suspects: the career criminal types that first enticed Tarantino and his ilk. Wheatley prefers the British lower-middle- class family guys (and gals) who have become or are in the process of becoming socio/psychopathic. These are who he shows us in Down Terrace and Sightseers; in Kill List he gives us contract killers who work for and are (for a time, at least) sanctioned by their government.

Of his three movies, Sightseers is my favorite, so perhaps I am becoming something of a fan. The two leads Steve Oram and Alice Lowe -- project just the right amount of deadpan, along with the necessary charm, creepiness and barely-buried anger their roles require. The two also did the film's screenplay.

The movie has a great dog, too (this is a big month for terrific dogs: See also Starlet), who goes first by the name of Poppy and later morphs into Benji. (Did the same dog play both roles; I don't know.) Poppy/Benji adds some lift and lighter moments to the proceedings, which grow increasingly murderous and dark, as Wheatley provides his own special blend of black comedy.

The plot is basically a litany of murders, with who and why part of the "fun." This fun comes from a sociopath's POV, of course, which is part of the filmmaker's problem: You have to pretty much embrace "sociopathy" to have a good time.

Our antiheroes'/lovers' road trip take them and us around some of the more unusual of Britain's tourist spots: sometimes scenic and always a trifle odd. Class enters the picture (this is a British film, after all), along with envy and entitlement.

Sightseers is also perhaps the first of Wheatley's film in which you might say a character changes and grows. Into what, of course, is another matter. And, yes, I am being deliberately remote here in order not to spoil any of the ugly/funny surprises along the way.

The movie, from IFC Films and running 89 minutes, opens this Friday, May 10, in New York City (Landmark Sunshine Cinema) and Los Angeles (the Landmark NuArt). Three days later, on May 13, the film will hit VOD.

Ben Wheatley's KILL LIST hits theaters, while DOWN TERRACE streams on Netflix

Flavor of the bi-month (in the FSLC's current issue of Film Comment) and flavor of the quarter (as his film makes the cover of Cinema Scope), Ben Wheatley would seem the current darling of the British independent film scene. Well, we're all always looking for something new-and-different, and Wheatley, at first glance, does provide it. But after a moment-or-two's reflection, it seems to TrustMovies that new-and-different may not quite be synonymous with extra-special. Since KILL LIST, Mr. Wheatley's second feature as director and co-writer, opens theatrically this week, we'll tackle it first, though I might suggest that, before viewing Kill List, you stream his first feature (also-much-loved-by-Brit-crits), DOWN TERRACE (it's available now via Netflix), if only because Kill List will then seem a step upwards in some regards.

Mr. Wheatley, shown above, likes meshing (and messing with) various genres. Kill List, which begins but one step above current Brit miserabilism and family dram/com, goes on to enter the crime-and-hit-man areas, and finally comes out looking like an only-slightly-updated Hammer horror of, say, The Wicker Man sort -- but with some ersatz politics tossed into the mix. The big problem is that, despite relatively good work by all in the writing, acting and directing arenas, this genre-jumbling does not feel the least organic. Instead, it goes along clunk, clunk, clunk.

The first clunk comes with practically the opening frame, in which we see what looks like some kind of Blair Witch insignia. Aha! we think: Scary horror film. (I understand about foreshadowing and all that -- we learned it in school --  but this very early and not at all subtle hint is a bit much.) But then we're suddenly in family rom/dram/com territory, as hubby and wife argue about money and responsibility and what not. Along the way, we note that hubby and his buddy are involved in some kind of military or government-sponsored "business" that went a little haywire some time back.

And then we have a family dinner, in which buddy's date, during a visit to the loo, does something that sounds the second "clunk" of the evening, in an even less subtle manner. And then the killings start (Or maybe they've already begun -- it's been several months since I've seen the film, so its timeline is growing a bit foggy.) One by one, each grows more graphic than the one that preceded it. The second is so bloody/ghastly that my female guest said she came close to rising and talking back to the screen as she walked out of the auditorium, but she stayed silent in her seat, so as not to embarrass me.

By the time we get to the finale Hammer horror section, which really does seem like it is taking place in another movie (we and our two heroes have to traverse underground tunnels to get to this section, and what could be more organic than that), we're primed for just about anything. Which is pretty much what we get. The finale, however, would seem more of a transgressive shocker if A Serbian Film hadn't beaten it to the punch a year or two previous.

Kill List remains impressive on some fronts, chiefly the idea of melding these specific genres rather than its execution. And the cast is quite good, too. I found it a step up from Wheatley's first film in its ambitions, while the psychology of the characters -- at least those in its first two sections -- are quite a bit more on-the-mark.

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Down Terrace is certainly more of-a-piece than its predecessor. It does not switch genres but is from the outset what you'd call a dark family/crime comedy. Unfortunately it seems to be rooted in the kind of movie-making that says, "Wouldn't it be funny if such-and-such happened?!" and then sets out to make such-and-such happen -- despite everything we know about psychology, human beings, family bonding, and even drug trafficking (and other popular movie endeavors).

The film begins with father and son leaving the local police station where they appear to have "beaten the rap," though we don't know now (hell, by the end of the movie, we still don't quite know, though we can hazard a good guess) of what that rap consists.

We meet Ma (very well played by Julia Deakin, above) and then several of hers and Pa's friends and neighbors, as well as son's new girlfriend -- all of whom are involved in the family's unsavory whatever. Someone mentions a possible police informant -- and suddenly the shit hits the fan. What had initially seemed a family of weird people soon degenerates into a group for whom Charlie Manson would blush.

When the killing starts in this film, it never stops, growing crazier and less believable with each new "hit." And the film is only occasionally funny, though, as with Kill List, very well-acted. These characters are so very unbelievable as human beings that all credibility soon flies out the window. How could people this nutty have even begun to successfully man (and woman) an illegal business without screwing things up almost at once? The plotting here is by-the-book but pretty weak, and the psychology is nearly non-existent.

Why would the son, for instance (he's the first character in the film to be seen as clearly off-his-rocker) not take to heart word that his pregnant girlfriend (above, left) might just be preggers by another guy? Instead, it's like he never ever heard it, and what happens then, well, you'll see....

It's all just dark, darker, darkest -- with more than a trace of, gosh, aren't we smart/cute! Which is why I give the nod to Kill List as the better of the two films. It opens (at 95 minutes, via IFC Films) this Friday, February 3, in New York City at the IFC Center (and perhaps elsewhere around the country), after playing VOD for the past month or so.  Down Terrace (89 minutes, from Magnet Releasing), as stated earlier, is available for streaming via Netflix and perhaps other VOD-type venues.