Fyre Rises

Paul Knight’s Fyre Rises is a classic setup for a violent crime thriller; a retired criminal, now out of the game and living an honest life with his family, is pulled back into the life he left against his will. Unfortunately, Fyre Rises crumbles under the weight of its lofty ambitions, failing to provide much in the way of excitement and thrill and instead retreading the ground of similar and better films. While it should be lauded for attempting to create a British gangster epic, the film awkwardly lumbers its way through locations and sporadic languid action sequences, gesturing towards the drama that it never manages to sell.

Richard Fyre (Paul Marlon) used to be in the business of crime, but now he’s simply a dad living in the suburbs, struggling to get by. He’s even been reduced to accepting leftovers from the local greasy spoon to feed his family. He’s soon pulled back to his mercenary ways when Priest, a religious zealot slash gangster (reminiscent of Joker by way of Temu) sends his goons to recruit Fyre for another mission. Fyre accepts the job for the sake of his struggling family, and soon finds himself not so merrily on a plane to Spain. Immediately, the film demonstrates a lack of faith in how it establishes Fyre’s justification for ‘one last job’. Not only is he compelled by Priest’s henchmen who beat him senseless, Fyre is also forced back in due to his dire financial situation. It’s clumsy, and would have been far cleaner to pick one or the other; either his family is threatened and he’s doing this job for their safety, or he’s seeking out his old employment without his family knowing so that he can ‘be a man’, and provide for them as he knows he should. It’s a messy and unconvincing inciting incident, which in turn makes Fyre feel passive as a protagonist.

The opening act of Fyre Rises is reminiscent of Jonathan Glazer’s Sexy Beast, although instead of going from sunny Spain to a grey and damp United Kingdom, it’s the other way around. What Glazer nails is the careless bliss of protagonist Gal (Ray Winstone) who has retired happily in Spain, his red flesh cooking under the beating sun. Gal’s reluctance to do ‘one last job’ is reflected externally by the UK’s dismal weather. When Paul Knight takes viewers to Spain, it’s golden and sun-drenched, the score introduces a classical guitar, and it gives the impression of a careless summer holiday. Of course it’s not easy to depict Spain as miserably as the UK, but the choice to show beaches and bikini-clad sunbathers in part of a montage creates a complete tonal dissonance. Fyre should be anxious, devastated to be back in his old life which he apparently made a significant effort to escape. It creates a whiplash which could have either been avoided altogether or intentionally leaned into. Perhaps more attention could have been given to Fyre’s ironic anguish at being in a beautiful paradise, lying uncomfortable and vulnerable on a crowded beach. Knight could have incorporated the oppressive heat of the sun, cracking Fyre’s skin and burning his face, his sweat visibly and uncomfortably running down his face. Instead, we barely see Fyre outside in the daylight, and in one instance he’s sat next to the hotel pool in the shade barely looking inconvenienced. More than likely, the narrative reason for Fyre and crew taking on a job in Spain was that the production had an opportunity to shoot outside of the UK in a surface level attempt to expand the scope of the film.

Fyre Rises ultimately crumbles under the weight of its ambitions, and in attempting to look and sound like an epic, it draws attention to a pervasive lack of polish. The sound mix is noticeably choppy in one scene where Fyre’s voice can be quietly heard mumbling as one of Priest’s goons confronts him. Fyre’s dialogue isn’t loud or clear enough to be understood, so it comes across as an error in the final mix. Hell, it may well have been an error, I’m not sure. The film is edited vaguely too, with many interior locations doing a poor job to establish where characters are in relation to each other. The action scenes are few and far between, which could be considered a positive considering how slapdash they’re put together. Quick cuts, close angles, and muddy lighting keep the action vague and difficult to follow. Fyre Rises could have been better served as a 40 minute short, with fewer locations, a simpler narrative, and more attention given to its few action set pieces. It feels like a project that was simply too big for the cast and crew, and at nearly two hours long, it’s an endurance test.

It’s hard to know how sincerely Fyre Rises was produced. On the one hand, there’s some real enthusiasm from the cast, particularly Aaron Sidwell’s performance as Priest which should be praised for how much life he injects into the film when he’s on screen, as derivative as the character is. On the other hand, the film is not coy about Eric Roberts’ casting, who shows up remotely on a screen at the end of the film in a transparently brazen attempt to add a recognisable name to the poster. Fyre Rises misses the mark by skipping the fundamentals of good storytelling and filmmaking, instead attempting to mask its narrative failings with unremarkable spectacle.