Pop quiz time: What is the single most profitable entertainment product of all time?
It’s not Star Wars or Harry Potter or 50 Shades of Grey. The answer is Grand Theft Auto V. Produced and marketed at an estimated cost of $265 million, the 2013 video game has sold more than 150 million copies and has grossed more than $6 billion and counting. (The original Minecraft sold more copies, but GTA V retailed for significantly more per unit.)
In GTA, the player role-plays as a petty criminal trying to work their way up in the organized crime hierarchy, acquiring money, weapons, and all sorts of vehicles along the way. There are missions to go on to advance the plot and increase your status, but it’s completely possible to ignore all that and just run around stealing stuff and killing people for no reason. I, being a writer, like to stick to the script and see where the story takes me. I will admit that, in the midst of a hot pursuit, I have been known to take to the sidewalks, mowing down pedestrians to shake the popo. And when a mission goes really, really wrong, I will sometimes take out my gun and start shooting until the cops take me down. Why not? It’s a simulation. There are no consequences. And besides, I’m not really killing people. They’re just sprites: a collection of polygons going through little loops of simulated behavior.
But who hasn’t felt a twinge of guilt as they watch the hooker fly through the air and land in a heap behind the car? Sure, these non-player characters (NPCs) are just interlocking bundles of reflexes, but as I unthinkingly munch through a bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, it occurs to me that I am, too. What would it be like to be one of those NPCs, doomed to have their cars stolen over and over again, until I get bored and play Tetris?
That’s the jumping-off point for Free Guy. Ryan Reynolds stars as Guy, a bank teller in the GTA-like world of Free City who goes through the motions for eight or nine robberies a day. Taking a shotgun blast to the face is no big deal to Guy or his security guard bestie Buddy (Lil Rel Howery). When the player character, who always wears sunglasses, decides to shoot up the bank, Guy just re-spawns in his apartment next to his goldfish. But one day Guy’s world changes. He sees the girl of his dreams, a sunglasses-wearer named Molotov Girl (Jodie Comer), and he makes the impulsive decision to follow her. Soon, he’s standing up to bank robbers and scores a pair of glasses of his own. That’s when he begins to see the world as it really is: artificially constructed for someone else’s pleasure.
Free Guy is a gumbo of influences. The basic premise of the virtual world colliding with “real life” has been explored for decades, from Philip K. Dick to Westworld. As early as 1976, Doctor Who had adventures in a virtual reality called The Matrix. The hero of Tron was a game character who achieved self-awareness. Molotov Girl, a coder whose software was stolen by Free City creator Antwan (Taika Waititi), lives in-game in a secret shipping container like a William Gibson character. The MMORPG Free City is as much Fortnite and Ready Player One as it is GTA. Guy’s epiphany is brought about by putting on a player’s sunglasses, which allow him to see his world as it really is, just like They Live. Later, his clueless assertions of free will attract a worldwide audience, like The Truman Show, only with Twitch streamers instead of a TV broadcast. What’s really interesting is that all of those stories that used to predict the future now describe a relatable present.
There’s a lot going on here, and director Shawn Levy and writers Matt Lieberman and Zak Penn somehow make it all work. Reynolds is being his usual movie star self, so when the film grapples with sticky concepts — like what our responsibilities would be toward artificially created life capable of suffering — it goes down easy. Did I mention this is a comedy? It primarily gets laughs from Reynolds’ aw-shucks routine in the face of an increasingly abstract situation. But beneath all the slapstick and video game mayhem, Free Guy is a smart film with a lot on its mind.
Free Guy
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