★★★☆☆

THE shootout may be a reliable staple of action cinema but rarely is it the point of the whole thing as it takes up almost the entire movie. Free Fire invites you to find out what that’s like.

It’s Boston 1978 and two groups of criminals have agreed to meet at an abandoned warehouse in the middle of nowhere for a gun deal. Is it possible for things to proceed without a hitch or will the guns inevitably start blazing? There are no prizes for guessing things go south fairly quickly.

Ben Wheatley – the man behind such attention-grabbing films as Kill List, Sightseers and most recently the J.G. Ballard adaptation High-Rise – sets his carefully placed scope on making the most elongated barrage of bullets that it’s possible to muster. The ensuing explosive, bullet-ridden carnage wouldn’t be out of place in a ‘80s Schwarzenegger actioner, just set a decade earlier and with added 21st-century slyness.

Ironically the strength of the film is not within the eponymous free fire itself but rather the quippy, sardonic dialogue – “I forgot whose side I’m on!” is shouted once we’re firmly into bullet-spraying territory – slung between its diverse array of characters all played by an inspired choice of cast.

Highlights undoubtedly include Armie Hammer’s slick go-between businessman with a penchant for sharp suits and beard oil, Wheatley regular Michael Smiley as an IRA member ready to crack skulls at the slightest verbal insult and Sharlto Copley whose comically over-the-top gun runner steals the star-studded show.

The idea of setting an entire film in one location is a tricky one and the film is never 100 per cent successful in pulling it off. The direction never makes dynamic use of its singular locality, opting instead for quick edits between trigger pulling and close-ups of the cannon fodder characters trying to take cover, robbing it of maximum tension.

“Are you gonna’ bark all day, little doggy, or are you gonna’ bite?” says Mr Blonde in Quentin Tarantino’s seminal 1992 crime movie, the inevitable comparison to Wheatley’s single location tale. Wheatley’s film never quite chomps down on the jugular, with the staginess and constrictive editing ultimately getting the better of it. But there’s a self-aware wit about the unmitigated carnage held up by a cracking cast that makes it a fun, if curiously unmemorable, lark.