Toronto Sun April 20, 2017 Free Fire devotes itself to a whole hour of flying stuff – bullets, barbs, quips, broken glass and other detritus, some of it human. It i...
The Atlantic April 20, 2017 Free Fire is a pure slog-a loud, brutish, gritty mini-spectacle that’s impressive only in its devotion to simplicity.
Financial Times March 30, 2017 Free Fire is a blend of thriller and black comedy that doesn’t work as either.
"Free Fire" is not Wheatley’s best film, but it is a rollicking good time and, more important, an inadvertent skeleton key to think...
Variety September 9, 2016 Crosses the irreverent cheekiness of Quentin Tarantino’s "Reservoir Dogs" with the ruthless spirit of 1970s B-movies, in which audi...
We cease to care about who lives, dies and what body parts are shot off. It doesn’t help that, at certain points in the chaos, it’s har...
Culturess November 20, 2017 Free Fire is a bloody fun time once it gets its footing and takes aim.
The Guardian September 9, 2016 Once shots are fired, the film descends into a repetitive orgy of bullets and bad jokes.
Free Fire is a fun romp for those missing a little Quentin Tarantino-style insanity in their filmgoing lives.
indieWire September 12, 2016 Less bullet ballet than bullet drum solo, Wheatley’s zany 90-minute set piece borrows the right ingredients to put on a good show.
The Daily Beast September 9, 2016 It’s relentlessly brutal and surprisingly hilarious, the blackest of black humor seeping from its pores.
To describe Ben Wheatley’s latest picture as a blast doesn’t even come close to capturing the film’s adrenalised assault on...
Armie Hammer has a gift for deadpan humor, and it’s put to great use here. Cillian Murphy is the closest thing to a hero (or at least an...
Daily Telegraph October 18, 2016 Free Fire is a mad contraption, bristling with bravado and black, sardonic wit.
New York Times April 20, 2017 Mr. Wheatley’s "High-Rise" was a highlight of 2016, and again he shows that he’s a technically virtuosic director whose humor has...
Times (UK) March 31, 2017 Free Fire is all about bullets and quips. Neither hit their targets 100 per cent of the time but enough do to make this one of the more d...
The Guardian March 30, 2017 There is a kind of pure hilarious effrontery in the way Free Fire simply protracts the gruesome catastrophe. This is what the story is.
Wheatley allows his notorious black humour to resurface, and with 90 minutes of mindless shootouts, he reaches his goal.
Slant Magazine September 10, 2016 Its self-consciously witty dialogue is meant to paper over gratuitous violence with a veneer of nonchalance.
Village Voice April 20, 2017 It suggests that Wheatley may now only be interested in staging orgies of violence rather than thinking about the psychological writhing that leads...
"I forget whose side I’m on," one of the cringing combatants hollers at one point, as if to reassure the viewer that they’re not alone...
Irish Times March 29, 2017 The picture can’t quite pull off its ambitious challenge. There’s a reason nobody has tried this before.
Just imagine what an Itchy and Scratchy short directed by Sam Peckinpah would look like. That’s Free Fire.
MovieFreak.com April 21, 2017 Free Fire a crackerjack maelstrom of creative madness that’s a full-throttle merry-go-round of machinegun excitement.
More fun than a hopped-up helicopter joy ride.
This cartoonishly violent exercise in cinematic hero worship comes at the audience with chambers loaded and fires off rounds too rapidly to worry a...
If the film has only one note to play, it plays it with a certain slapstick panache, landing closer to Reservoir Dogs than The Boondock Saints...
Slant Magazine April 14, 2017 Ben Wheatley’s film reduces the modus operandi of the action movie down to its starkest elements.
The third-act shootout is a staple of a certain kind of film, but in Ben Wheatley’s Free Fire it’s essentially the entire movie. A...
Free Fire is exactly what you think it is, yet more entertaining than it has any right to be. Add to that the Oscar-caliber editing… plus random mo...
sfchronicle.com April 19, 2017 Quibbling aside, Free Fire mainly works, as an indulgence in cinematic overkill for moviegoers who realize that sometimes too much is just enough.
Globe and Mail April 21, 2017 A mostly fun, over-the-top ode to the siege movie, as well as a love/hate letter to all things firearm-related.
Free Fire is a fearless and sharp shoot 'em up, loaded with star power, and polished with gallows humor.
The film feels like Reservoir Dogs with a hangover.
RogerEbert.com April 20, 2017 Free Fire is neither the best nor the worst of the Tarantino wannabes; at its worst, it’s tediously unoriginal, and at its best, it’s f...
New Yorker April 17, 2017 A smug knockoff of Quentin Tarantino’s brand of ironic violence, at several degenerations' remove.
The Guardian April 2, 2017 You’ll laugh, you’ll wince, you’ll duck. Bullseye!
The whole thing is awfully nihilistic, but that’s film noir for you.
Cornfed curse words fuel a script that doesn’t amount to much more than a hateful snatch of Tarantino’s set-bound posturing, spike...
Chicago Reader April 20, 2017 Wheatley and Amy Jump, his frequent screenwriting partner, can’t afford to let the action flag for long, so the characters never amount to mu...
For those who don’t mind a little blood & gore and a lot of profanity, Free Fire is a superior alternative to the big-name, bloated...
massappeal.com April 18, 2017 It’s a mix of over-the-top violence and humor, but the shtick becomes tiring fast, and even Copley’s appeal starts to drag, just a...
Sight & Sound September 16, 2016 What might be messy in less capable hands is simply dynamic here. The film’s fiery energy is amped up by its suitably warm lensing, all orang...
"Free Fire" is a greasy double bacon cheeseburger of a movie. It is slick, stylish nihilism without an ounce of socially redeeming value...
ScreenCrush September 9, 2016 I ran out of patience long before the participants ran out of ammo.
Hollywood Reporter September 9, 2016 Alas, for all its stellar talent, Free Fire is a scattershot exercise in genre homage that ultimately misses the target.
Jocular gun violence and "colorful" characters make for an amusing but glib action-comedy.
Free Fire is a clever film with snappy writing and decent action choreography. And it’s not just a pastiche of Tarantino’s work de...
Empire Magazine October 18, 2016 Comparisons to Reservoir Dogs are probably inevitable given the warehouse setting, copious firearms and endlessly quotable script, but this is ...
As the increasingly shot-up crims drag themselves around the dusty old umbrella factory, blasting away, it becomes difficult to follow precisely wh...
Sure, too many of the jokes fall flat, and Larson is criminally underutilized; but Reynor and Hammer are the film’s secret weapons, spinning...
Detroit News April 21, 2017 An exhausting, masturbatory, self-indulgent Tarantino facsimile.
Rolling Stone April 21, 2017 If its clip gets emptied before the characters' ammunition runs out, the film still hits its target dead-center.
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