Free Fire (2016)

Without soul or wit, we're left with nothing but bad Halloween costumes and artillery. Nostalgia never felt so bad.

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 action films hogging the largest screens in most multiplexes.

Cornfed curse words fuel a script that doesn't amount to much more than a hateful snatch of Tarantino's set-bound posturing, spiked with a blend of pre-Madonna, semi-intelligible Guy Ritchie oddballs.

Ben Wheatley shouldn't settle for becoming the next Guy Ritchie. For some reason, he'd like to.

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 anti-hero we can root for) in the movie. Brie Larson is a gamer.

If its clip gets emptied before the characters' ammunition runs out, the film still hits its target dead-center.

Taking the glamour, if not the glee, out of violent big-screen gun battles, Free Fire draws more on slapstick comedies than it does Hollywood shoot 'em ups.

Without dialogue that dazzles in juxtaposition to the low-life milieu, what's the function of a film like this? Wheatley, it's clear, hasn't a clue. His experiment misfires, and what's truly minimal is any chance that you'll feel differently.

Enjoy watching the bullets fly early and often in what essentially amounts to one long, bloody shootout in a single location.

Free Fire is a clever film with snappy writing and decent action choreography. And it's not just a pastiche of Tarantino's work despite the obvious influence.

Well edited, shot and written, Free Fire hits all its targets, an action thriller sure to make audiences gasp and giggle with ease.

The good news is, it's definitely fun, and we do care, at least a little, about the characters and the situation ... [but] in its long second act and into its third, it's a very easy movie to tune out of.