An admission: I am an old lady who has never played a video game and has little patience for films that depend on violence, crashing cars, ridiculous-looking characters, or monsters (and people) that kill as entertainment. So for me, the best thing about “Free Guy” was getting to escape the unlivable heat in a nice, air-conditioned movie theater that isn’t dangerously overcrowded.
Surprisingly, though, “Free Guy” overcomes the unpromising premise that the film’s star is nothing but an unaware NPC (non-playing character) in a brutal video game by giving us a hero who decides to write his own story.
The titular character in Shawn Levy’s film is Guy (Ryan Reynolds), a mild-mannered, terminally upbeat bank teller who ends every interaction with “Don’t have a good day. Have a great day” and goes home to his goldfish because, as he says, “I have everything I need … except one thing.”
Guy’s best friend is Buddy, played by Lil Rey Howery, a security guard at the bank, also a background player in “Free City” the video game. He is aware of both worlds.
The game’s star is Molotovgirl (Jodie Comer), British and horrifyingly dressed in black leather, heels, straps, the sort of thing that signals “Don’t mess with me.”
But wait – Molotovgirl is also a pretty blonde video game designer named Millie, and Guy is instantly smitten with her. Could she be interested in him?
The rest of the film depicts the struggle between those two worlds, with plenty of video game elements like monsters, mean people, weird-o critters and the like, balanced by the good, old-fashioned humanity of the Guy/Millie relationship.
What makes it work is a script that is as amusing as it is violent, and excellent actors to bring their characters to life.
Comer and Reynolds, the charming heart and soul of the show, are balanced by Taika Waititi as super bad guy Antwan and his employee Mouser (Utkarsh Ambudkar), a coder for “Free City,” dedicated enough to his boss to wear an outrageous outfit I’ll let you discover.
Kudos to Levy for producing a film that shouldn’t work. It was written by committee, has elements people like me hate, and still I recommend it. Go figure.
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