I'm not dead. I'm just...regrouping.

I don't know what the Hell is wrong with my house, but if you step outside for more than a minute, there's a good chance you're coming in with at least one mosquito bite. If not eleven.

Outside of the time I got very, very sick from a bite a couple of years ago, these little annoying f--kers don't even phase me any more. But my wife and kids? Goodness. They come in the house holding their arms and legs like they got shot.

And while I used to think they were being dramatic, I'm starting to think they're underselling the pain. Cause a bullet? Shoot.

That ain't nothing. 

Quite the circle jerk, no?

I started to lose track near the thirty-minute mark, but I'm pretty sure that every character in Ben Wheatley's Free Fire takes at least one bullet, if not eleven. And for the most part, even after getting shot, this gang of motley scumbags, keeps on keepin' on. It might be admirable...if it were altogether decipherable.

Set in damn near real-time, the setup is both simple and entirely convoluted. The initial gang we meet, led by that handsomely terrifying bastard Cillian Murphy, is gearing up for a late-night meeting in some abandoned factory. On the agenda? A pretty epic arms deal. Brie Larson and Armie Hammer are helping to broker the deal, in addition to some low-level grunts tagging along to do the heavy lifting. Literally.

On the other side of the table, is the consistently charming Sharlto Copley. He and his crew haven't exactly brought the right weapons, but as far as he's concerned, a gun's a gun. And after a tense moment or two (and a shit ton of shit-talking), it appears the deal is a go. The money is counted, the van pulled 'round. Pleasure doing business, ya know?

Oooh, about that....

Welp, without spoiling too much, it's safe to say that shit hits the fan. Like, massive diarrhea into a f--king jet engine. Where most movies have a film featuring a gunfight, Free Fire inverts that idea and instead presents us with a gunfight that occasionally features a film. While I appreciate the sort-of non-stop bang! bang! of it all, I wanted to throw my hands up and give this f--ker a Whoa! Whoa! Tyler Durden style. Let's just think this over for a second, shall we?

I'm not 100% sure what Bree Larson is doing in this film. But..
...if you don't mind, it doesn't matter.

See, even if a giant f--king shootout is all that this little boy ever wanted, in reality, it's not the boner-inducing event that I had always dreamed of. I don't want to say that it gets boring...no...it's just that it turns out that after awhile...(somewhat random) people intermittently shooting at each other isn't all that exciting. I know. I know, I sound like the guy in the movie where the slutty girl is throwing herself at him, and he's pulling her shirt up. And everybody hates that guy.

But seriously, Free Fire, can't we just talk for a little while?

Speaking of conversations that no one wants to have, here are the Yays and Boos. This last week was likely the longest movie-free stretch in the recent history of Two Dollar Cinema, and without seeing any movies (and being on the road like a goddamned circus-folk), I simply had nothing to post. Yeah, you don't have to say it. You're welcome.

I'd say these six people...probably catch at least 18 bullets.
And that might be a conservative estimate...

Yaaaaaaaaay!

• Larson plays Justine, who despite being pretty pleasant for the most part, is IIFH. In it for herself.
• I know the guy is f--king snakebit, but I always love seeing Armie Hammer. Especially when he's playing a cocky a-hole...which is pretty much always, but still.
• Come out, come out wherever you are! Even if it's not a creepy-ass Robert DeNiro saying it...still one of my favorite (movie) lines ever.
• Dude, no one plays a more lovable douchebag than Sharltp Copley. Here, he plays Vernon, the misdiagnosed child-genius. Every f--king thing he says is hilarious. Vern and learn, motherf--kers. Vern and learn. Especially if you're worried about bullet-related infections.
• There's a point, and it's desperately needed, that Hammer's character, Ord, literally calls out attendance. And it's fantastic. 
• Man, Martin is my f--king hero. Google images needs to replace anything that shows up under 'resilient' with a picture of Martin's f--king face, asap.
• There's a little bit of romance here...and it's adorable. Uh...initially.
• Though most of the talking is in between gunfire, there are a lot of good lines buried in the cacophony of bullets and shouting. Extra credit is awarded to SteveO, who talks all kinds of shit.
• And finally, even if the movie wasn't incredible...when I fired it up? It felt good to be back. Sometimes I'm not even sure why I even bother staying up till three in the morning jerking off all over my keyboard (okay, that came out wrong), but I can't help it. Even if I'm writing for three of you...f--k it, you know? Three's enough.

I honestly don't know who this guy is, but he ruins everything.
And typically I like people who look like...
 ...if George McFly managed a used bookstore.

Booooooooo!

• Man, SteveO and his friend are invited to this party...for a hundred bucks? I wouldn't load a van of water guns for that little bit of scratch, let alone f--king AR10s.
• Speaking of SteveO, uh, couldn't you just pretend to be sorry? Like, for ten minutes...then be an asshole on the way home.
• Who are these assholes on the fringe? And why can't they hit anybody?
• Oh, and I realize that this is stupid to even mention, but uh...even in video games...unlimited ammo kind of takes the fun out of it, you know?
• Whatever! I forgot whose side I'm on. See, this line is funny. But sadly, also applicable.
• Vern kills a guy...that was just walking. Not cool, Vern. Not cool. Even if Africa's not for sissies.
• Uh, somebody gets shot directly in the face. And a head is run over. At a slow speed. I'm not booing the violence...just, well, I kinda liked the two victims, okay? That ain't no way for these two to go.
• This giant f--king dude named Leary shows up. And gets immediately housed. Wait, what? 
• And finally, the very end. I guess there was no other way for this to wrap up, but I felt it was kind of weak. Fine, conversation over punch and pie would have been stupid, sure, but what we were left with wasn't much better.

As I'm sitting here in my kitchen, it would appear that, surprising no one, there's a f--king mosquito in my house. And somehow that f--ker has bitten me twice. Once on each thumb. How the f--k that's even possible is beyond me. Really. How could that even happen?

Which is the same question I ask myself when people in a movie get shot and continue to function normally.