Tag: Ben Wheatley

Movie Review – ‘Free Fire’ – Shooting Blanks

Directed by Ben Wheatley
Written by Amy Jump & Ben Wheatley
Cast: Enzo Cilenti, Sam Riley, Michael Smiley, Brie Larson, Cillian Murphy, Armie Hammer, Sharlto Copley, Babou Ceesay, Noah Taylor, Jack Reynor, Mark Monero, Patrick Bergin, Sara Dee (voice), Tom Davis
Soundtrack: Geoff Barrow & Ben Salisbury

This isn’t my first go ’round with this crew.

I saw Ben and Amy’s High-Rise last year, and wasn’t particularly impressed, but far be it from me to not give people second chances if it feels warranted.  After all, Free Fire obviously features a whole lot of guns, and a good handful of actors I actually like, so how bad could it be?

Well, frankly, I wish I hadn’t even asked the question.

This movie sent up red flags almost immediately, thanks to some bad Boston accents, and it never got much better from there.  The plot is razor thin (and boring), the characters are thin (and boring), and the action is poorly executed (look, I get that the joke is that they’re all bad shots, but you’ve got to give me some geography, man).  Seriously, I haven’t been this bored watching people shoot at each other since Jason Bourne (at least Free Fire has the decency to not be two hours long, although, honestly, the shorter runtime doesn’t help much).

Much like with High-Rise, there’s just something missing with Free Fire (maybe a lot of things, actually).  It’s not funny enough, violent enough (with the exception of a couple of quick moments), stylish enough, frightening enough, or clever enough to make you feel like you saw something worthwhile.  I can’t even tell you how much of the runtime I spent asking myself, “What emotion am I supposed to be feeling right now?”  I did chuckle a few times (which is why it’s not getting zero stars), but that was it; there was nothing else to grab onto.

Not every movie has to be the same, not every MacGuffin has to pay off, and not everything has to have “a point,” but every movie has to have something, and at the end of the day, Free Fire‘s pretty much got nothing.  I didn’t think I liked High-Rise all that much, but it feels like a quantum leap ahead of this movie, I tell you what.

Maybe I’m just not on board with Ben Wheatley (who knows?), but this movie is not one to be seen.

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

Twofer Movie Review: ‘The Lobster’ and ‘High-Rise’ – Independents’ Day

Not everything that gets talked about here is action schlock.  Some of it is more artsy.

The Lobster

Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos
Written by Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthymis Filippou
Cast: Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz, Jessica Barden, Olivia Colman, Ashley Jensen, Ariane Labed, Angeliki Papoulia, John C. Reilly, Léa Seydoux, Michael Smiley, Ben Whishaw, Roger Ashton-Griffiths, Ewen MacIntosh

I do my best not to spoil things here, and that’s particularly true of a movie like The Lobster, because so much of the enjoyment comes from discovering how its world operates as the story progresses.  There are no title cards at the beginning like Red Dawn to explain how we got here, you just figure it out on the fly.

What I can tell you, because it’s in the trailer, is that The Lobster is the story of a man who goes to a special resort to find a mate, and if he’s unsuccessful in that he will be turned into an animal he has previously chosen.  In the case of our protagonist, he has chosen to be a lobster should it come to that.

I will also tell you that the world of The Lobster is one of rigidity and harsh consequences, and it is this area in particular where the movie so deftly commentates on our own society in terms of the nature of relationships.

Tonally, the movie is a dark comedy, and a rather funny one at that.  Colin Farrell turns in a delightfully awkward performance, John C. Reilly is his naturally humorous self, and Rachel Weisz delivers some absolutely absurd voice-overs completely straight, which is hilarious.

It’s a bit of a long, strange trip, and it may not end the way you like, but it’s one worth taking.  Check out The Lobster if you’re up for something off the beaten path.

Rating: ★★★½ (out of five)

 

High-Rise

Directed by Ben Wheatley
Written by Amy Jump, based on the novel by J.G. Ballard
Cast: Tom Hiddleston, Jeremy Irons, Sienna Miller, Luke Evans, Elisabeth Moss, James Purefoy, Keeley Hawes, Reece Shearsmith, Enzo Cilenti, Sara Dee (voice)
Soundtrack: Clint Mansell

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” – Oscar Wilde

No doubt, High-Rise aspires to be great, but it’s no Brazil.  Heck, it’s not even Snowpiercer.

Based on the novel by J.G. Ballard (which was, perhaps correctly, considered “unfilmable” for nearly four decades), High-Rise is chock-full of British classism, Seventies excess, and tons of actual garbage.  Not having read the source material, I can’t tell you if the adaptation is too faithful, not faithful enough, or somewhere in between, but it does feel like it’s in a no-man’s-land of sort.

It’s hard to pin down exactly what High-Rise is missing, but it’s not thought-provoking enough, shocking enough, funny enough, or horrifying enough to make the impact it desires.  At a certain point it becomes a bit meandering, but the core story is so simple that you never really lose track of who’s doing what and why.  Perhaps it’s the fact that we’re not given anyone to truly invest in that makes High-Rise so muddled.

However, one thing I’ll give a lot of credit for is the production design.  Rather than taking place in an uber-futuristic dystopia, High-Rise is set in a dystopian vision of the 1970s, which means lots and lots of period cars, costumes, hair, and carpeting. in addition to more fantastical elements like an 18th century costume party.

If you’re a hardcore fan of Ben Whealey’s films or J.G. Ballard’s books, then you’ll probably see it anyway, but, save for that, High-Rise is probably not worth your time.

Rating: ★★½ (out of five)