GAMES WITHOUT FRONTIERS

PLAYING WITH A SELF-AWARE RYAN REYNOLDS, SHAWN LEVY TAKES VIDEO GAME MOVIES TO THE NEXT LEVEL IN FREE GUY

- NICK SETCHFIELD

ANYONE WHO’S looking for a dark, nihilistic, cynical time at the movies, Free Guy ain’t for you!” says director Shawn Levy, clearly unafraid to scare away the hardcore Joker demographic while promoting his latest film.

“If you’re looking for joy, if you’re looking for hope and just a belief in human connection and the possibilities of stepping up and living bigger and having more of a footprint in your world, that’s where we came from when we made this movie.”

And if you’re looking for a high concept – the kind of instant, genius hook that’s the eternal grail quest of Hollywood – then Free Guy delivers on that, too.

Welcome to Free City, an open-world videogame in the carnage-stacked tradition of Grand Theft Auto. In this unreal arena of car smashes and gunfire, sweet-natured bank teller Guy (Ryan Reynolds) exists as an NPC – a non-player character, perfectly content to populate the background.

Sure, reality’s pretty weird: the same bullet-spattering bank robbery occurs on a daily basis, but he has his best pal, Buddy (Get Out’s Lil Rel Howery), a pet goldfish and the most delicious coffee in the whole world. What’s a little endlessly looping mayhem compared to that kind of simple happiness? But then Guy suddenly becomes sentient, and reality shatters…