Although we mentioned his tenuous involvement in the The Crow remake this morning, it’s time we focus on another movie he is attached to, namely the action-thriller Free Fire from his High-Rise director Ben Wheatley and Protagonist Pictures.
In addition to Evans, the shootout film about an arms deal that goes spectacularly wrong will also star Armie Hammer (The Lone Ranger), Cillian Murphy (“Peaky Blinders”), Olivia Wilde (Rush) and Wheatley regular Michael Smiley (Kill List, The World’s End).
Here’s the synopsis: The story is set in Boston in 1978. Wilde plays Justine, a woman who has brokered a meeting in a deserted warehouse between two Irishmen (Murphy, Smiley) and a gang led by Hammer and Evans who are selling them a stash of guns. But when shots are fired in the handover, a heart stopping game of survival ensues.
“The idea for ‘Free Fire’ came from my love of hard boiled crime movies,” said Wheatley of his many influences, “from ‘The Asphalt Jungle,’ ‘The Big Sleep,’ ‘The Killing’ and ‘The Big Combo’ through ‘The Driver,’ ‘Le Samourai’ and ‘The French Connection,’ to the modern cycle of ‘Goodfellas,’ ‘Casino,’ ‘Hard Boiled’ and ‘Reservoir Dogs.’ ‘Free Fire’ will take you and stick you in the middle of the action. I want the film to have the stylish, no nonsense feel that you get in Peckinpahs ‘The Getaway.’ It’s a modern ’70s movie. Muscular, tough and spare.”
Wheatley, the prolific up-and-coming English director behind Sightseers, Kill List and two episodes in the current season of BBC’s “Doctor Who,” also has the creature-filled movie Freakshift as well an HBO sci-fi series titled “Silk Road” in development. High-Rise, starring Evans, Tom Hiddleston, Jeremy Irons, Sienna Miller and Elisabeth Moss, was shot this past summer and will be released sometime in 2015.
(Photo Credit: Getty Images)
