An all-star ensemble cast, bullets that never stop flying, songs by John Denver – Ben Wheatley’s film Free Fire’s explosive mix of ingredients are coming together to send the box office ablaze.
One of its stars Michael Smiley (far right in the main image) has a simple explanation of the film’s success. “The film is the hero,” he says. “The film is star of the film, that’s what makes it really sexy for me. All the components – the editing, the lighting, the camera, the performances, the soundtrack – every department shines in the film.”
In Free Fire, about an arms trade gone awry, Smiley plays IRA gun smuggler Frank, alongside a cast that includes Cillian Murphy, Sharlto Copley, Armie Hammer, Sam Riley, Jack Reynor, Babou Ceesay and Brie Larson (very few of whom this computer’s automatic spellchecker condones).
“It also harks back to these great independent American films from the late ’60s to the late ’70s – Easy Rider types,” Smiley continues. “What was interesting about those was a lot of the directors and writers had been blacklisted under McCarthyism in the 1950s. They had to go away and when they came back they started making little independent films, so a lot of those great films were made by people deemed to be personae non gratae.
“If Trump had his way he’d do the same – make the naysayers, the anti-Trumpers go away.”
