An iTunes rental that I started on the flight from BWI to ORD but finished in the hotel after the flight was cancelled on August 3rd. This film was completed back in 2015 and was slated to have a US release last year but the distribution company ran into some financial trouble and didn't get into US theaters until April 21st of this year.
Ben Wheatley directed and wrote the screenplay. Wheatley has been directing films for only a few years but has done some pretty nice work. Though it's never mentioned, the film is set in 1978 and you can tell this because of the wardrobe...
I think the guy in the hat played with the Doobie Brothers and the collar on that shirt can double as a hang glider. The porn star mustaches are also a dead giveaway.
The plot is pretty simple, one group of people wants to buy some guns from another group of people. There are two intermediaries, one for the buyers and one for the sellers. Everyone involved is a character. On the the buyers side you have Frank (Michael Smiley) and Chris (Cillian Murphy) from the IRA. Stevo (Sam Riley) and Bernie (Enzo Cilenti) are brought in by Frank to help move the merchandise. The intermediary for the buyers is Justine (Brie Larson)...
Before going to the buy, the group is met by Ord (Armie Hammer), the middle man of the purchase. It seemed to me that Frank and Chris called Justine to buy some guns. Justine calls Ord and Ord calls Vernon (Sharlto Copley). Vernon's crew consists of Martin (Babou Ceesay), Gordon (Noah Taylor) and Harry (Jack Reynor). The setting is an abandon warehouse on the docks. The sale goes smoothly despite the fact that Chris wanted to buy M16s and Vernon brought AR70s. Things go south when Stevo recognizes Harry as the guy who beat him up the night prior. Harry eventually spots Stevo and tempers flare. Chris offers a solution in order to broker a truce but when Stevo goes to apologize, he pulls out a gun and starts firing. All hell proceeds to break loose.
At some point everyone takes a bullet but somehow, none of the wounds are life threatening. So much so that Martin take a bullet to the head but is not quite dead a few scenes later. During the standoff a third group comes in to rob the sale but are soon killed. It's weird how much terrible shooting there is until another crew is introduced then everyone becomes Annie Oakley. Eventually people start dying off and its revealed that some of the players tried to pull a double cross and steal the money. In the end, only one survives.
The film received a 67% rating from Rotten Tomatoes and that's fair. There's a lot of witty dialogue, the acting is solid and the identity of the double crosser is a twist but, all of the characters who get killed off, are killed off predictably (by importance). The film is only 91 minutes long but the stand off drags on too much. The run time was spot on but there were 10 minutes in the warehouse that could've been replaced with some exposition. I liked this movie, Larson and Copley had standout performances. I'm going to go back and view some Wheatley's prior films. Perhaps there's a reason that no one went to see this picture when it was in the theaters. It's not a dud by any means, it's just meh. A good start and a good ending and a lot of repetition in the middle.
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