Writer-director Ben Wheatley (Kill List, Sightseeers, and, most recently, High-Rise) is returning to his crime roots — his directorial debut was 2009’s Down Terrace about a mob family — with Free Fire, which will also mark his first feature to be set in the United States. With a premiere at Toronto International Film Festival last night — and our review coming shortly — A24 have now debuted the first trailer.
Following a deal-gone-sour at a warehouse in 1978’s Boston, the environment becomes a shooting ground where survival is hard to come by. Wheatley has assembled a monster cast with Cillian Murphy, Brie Larson, Armie Hammer, Sharlto Copley, Sam Riley, Jack Reynor, Noah Taylor, and Michael Smiley.
The trailer features a unique blend of dark comedy, tension, and violence with the entire cast in playful and energetic form. This could be Wheatley’s first film with mass appeal — efforts like Kill List and High-Rise have been divisive — and mark him as a director with a unique cinematic voice who can handle an ensemble.
See the trailer below.
Bold, breathless and wickedly fun, Free Fire is an electrifying comedy-thriller about an arms deal that goes spectacularly and explosively wrong. Acclaimed filmmaker Ben Wheatley (Kill List, High Rise) propels the audience head-on into quite possibly the most epic shootout ever seen on film as he crafts a spectacular parody –– and biting critique –– of the insanity of gun violence. Everyone’s got a gun, and absolutely no one is in control.
Set in a colorful yet gritty 1970s Boston, Free Fire opens with Justine (Oscar® winner Brie Larson), a mysterious American businesswoman, and her wise-cracking associate Ord (Armie Hammer) arranging a black-market weapons deal in a deserted warehouse between IRA arms buyer Chris (Cillian Murphy) and shifty South African gun runner Vernon (Sharlto Copley). What starts as a polite if uneasy exchange soon goes south when tensions escalate and shots are fired, quickly leading to a full-on Battle Royale where it’s every man (and woman) for themselves.
Free Fire will be released by A24 in 2017.