Top director to visit Plymouth Arts Centre

Film director Ben Wheatley will visit Plymouth Arts Centre on January 26th to introduce his all-guns-blazing bullet opera Free Fire and will run an audience Q & A after the film.

Ben Wheatley (Down Terrace, Kill List, A Field in England, High-Rise, Sightseers) is one of the most exciting directors working in the world of independent cinema and this preview screening gives Plymouth film lovers the chance to see his latest film well in advance of the national release.

Plymouth Arts Centre’s Film Programmer, Anna Navas, said “I am so excited and pleased that a director of his standing is taking the time to come to Plymouth Arts Centre – it’s symbolic of the strength and importance of independent cinema in every way and makes me feel proud of what we do here. He is also going to Plymouth College of Art to talk to the film students there which also shows his commitment to encouraging young people to take risks with filmmaking.”

Ben Wheatley’s ascent as one of the UK’s most dazzling and prolific cinematic talents continues with Free Fire, a high-octane action thriller filmed hot-on-the-heels of last year’s High-Rise. Sharp-witted Justine (Larson) brokers a deal on behalf of two Irishmen setting them up to buy a stash of guns from seedy gangsters. But the meet-up in a deserted warehouse derails when a stoner side-kick recognises one of the two handover guys and shots are fired. Dripping with blood, sweat and irony, Free Fire’s bravura filmmaking pays knowing tribute to the kinetic cinema of directors such as Sam Peckinpah and Ringo Lam. Wheatley and writing/editing partner Amy Jump’s relentlessly playful riff on the shoot-em-up is as fascinated with the slowness of destruction as it is with speed and action. The virtuosic editing and complex staging (it was shot on location in a warehouse outside Brighton) serve not only to propel the mayhem, but also to emphasise just how long it takes, and how messy it is, to obliterate everything.

Notionally set in Boston and steeped in 1970s Americana (with threads and hairdos to die for… literally), the crackling script and knockout cast have as much fun with character and dialogue as we do with the fact that there are no mobile phones to save the day. Wheatley fan and supporter Martin Scorsese is one of the executive producers and the film’s intermittent, pulsating score is by Geoff Barrow (Portishead) and Ben Salisbury.

Dir. Ben Wheatley, UK, 2016, 90 mins.
Cast. Sharlto Copley, Armie Hammer, Brie Larson, Cillian Murphy, Jack Reynor