Free Guy Review

(Minor spoilers ahead)

When I first saw the advertisements for Free Guy, I was under-enthused by them. It seemed like your typical Hollywood joyless cash grab. But I’m a man who can admit when he’s wrong (even if it is begrudgingly). Free Guy is an enjoyable film that has a lot to say.

Guy (Ryan Reynolds) lives in Free City, a place where “the sunglasses people” create destruction and violence whilst the everyday people like Guy, live in a state of normalised chaos. Guy is a simple man: he has a goldfish named goldie, he orders a medium coffee with cream and 2 sugars in the morning, he yells cheerfully at Officer Johnny as he leaves the coffee shop, and walks to work in a bank with his best friend, a security guard named Buddy (Lil’ Rel Howery). Every day, the bank is robbed, sometimes twice a day, whilst they lie on the floor and muse about going to the beach. Every day, Guy thinks about finding love.

His entire world is changed when he meets Molotovgirl (Jodie Comer) and we find out that Guy is not a person but a non-playable character (or NPC) in the Free City game. Molotovgirl, who’s real name is Millie, is playing the game to win a lawsuit against the annoyingly capitalistic Antwan (Taika Waititi). She believes Antwan stole code from Life Itself, a game that Antwan bought (and shelved) from Millie and Millie’s ex-business partner and friend Keys’ (Joe Keery). What ensues is a hilarious, tender and action packed adventure taking place in two worlds, mixing the philosophy of The Matrix with visual aesthetics of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.

Flows

A meditation on violence

In bell hooks’ all about love, she writes “if consumers want to be entertained, and the images shown us as entertaining are images of violent dehumanization, it makes sense that these acts become more acceptable in our daily lives and that we become less likely to respond to them with moral outrage or concern.” Consumption of such violence is notoriously present in both action films and video games. But Free Guy actually takes an alternate approach. The film isn’t revolution isn’t arrived at through physical violence but rather philosophical awakenings. The gamers in Free Guy’s video game, ‘Free City’ begin to reconsider how they interact with non-playable characters and this re-evaluation of player’s in-game brutalities promotes a bottom-up approach, where care and concern for NPC’s can bring about a more caring perspective in real life.

Guy’s character growth

Guy goes from someone stuck in a loop of abusive rituals to someone who takes control of his own life, even if it’s a life that exists within a game. His personal growth spills outwards and creates a brand new world.

Editing

The special FX are masterfully done. I particularly enjoyed the musical selection and the sound design, particularly the choice to speed up and slow down songs over the course of scenes. It adds a depth to the interactions between the character’s whether, they’re talking, looking at each other, or fighting.

Ebbs

Magical Negro

Despite the film trying it’s best to side step Magical Negroism, this thoughtful and fun film falls flat in the reproduction of the trope via Buddy. Buddy helps nurse Guy through realisation about his own sentience. He turns up, just in the knick of time, to help Guy in the middle of his fight. He is sacrificed to ensure that Guy is successful in his goal (whilst leaving us with the cringey, departing words, “show ‘em we matter”– a line that I’m sure the white male screenwriters wrote whilst wiping the sweat from their brow and patting each other on the back) only to be brought back to life to ensure Guy has a friend. It’s not done so badly that it’s aggressively offensive but it is done badly enough that it is distracting and groan-worthy. I think the film tries to address it’s own usage of the trope by bringing Buddy back to life and having him describe his reanimation as magical, swirling fairy dust, but acknowledging it in this vague way doesn’t erase how Buddy felt like an accessory for Guy’s growth.

The Dialogue

The dialogue can sometimes appear clunky and it is particularly noticeable in Antwan, who suffers from what feels like a terrible misuse of Taika Watiti’s comic ability. There are also some points where exposition for the benefit of the audience is shoehorned into conversations between characters. This is not terribly done, but it is noticeable when a character tells another character information that they’d probably already know.

Conclusion

Free Guy seems to begin with a typical Hollywood formula but the delivery is so fresh that it ends in a place far different to it’s blockbuster contemporaries. We begin the film in a world that has an unsettling amount of normalised violence and ends with a world devoid of violence altogether. The film ties everything together wonderfully: philosophical depth, a compelling hero’s adventure and a believable journey of romance. The film only really fails when it tries to shoehorn in social issues (even the quip where Mouser calls out Keys’ ‘white privilege’ feels a little cringe) because it already manages to say a lot socially without snide comments. They end up distracting us from the solid message of the film (especially when you consider how the screenplay was penned by two white men). Nevertheless, Free Guy is still a fun and thoughtful film that everyone can take something from, whether it’s just a few chuckles or the courage to pursue the things you want.