Fire with Fire



3/4

Starring: Josh Duhamel, Rosario Dawson, Bruce Willis, Vincent D'Onofrio, Julian McMahon, Bonnie Sommerville, Eric Winter

Rated R for Strong Violence, Language and Brief Sexuality

As I've said before, I always encourage movies that take risks and try new things.  I'm a little more lenient on movies that do so, and "Fire with Fire" is one of them.  It has its problems, yes, but overall, I think it's a worthwhile experience.

Womanizing firefighter Jeremy Coleman (Duhamel) is unlucky enough to witness the brutal murder of a gas station owner and his son.  The killer is Aryan gang leader David Hagan (D'Onofrio), and unfortunately for him, Jeremy escapes the same fate.  At the urging of narcotics officer Mike Cella (Willis) and district attorney Karen Westlake (Sommerville), Jeremy agrees to testify against Hagan and will be placed in Witness Protection until the trial.  But Hagan is crafty and dangerous, and he has the tools and the manpower to find Jeremy and take him out.  Not only him, but his fellow firefighters and his new love, Witsec agent Talia Durham (Dawson).  After a hit on him leaves Talia gravely injured, Jeremy believes that the only way to take back his life is to take down Hagan and all of his associates.

This sounds like a straightforward revenge thriller.  I suppose, on some level, it is.  But director David Barrett is more ambitious.  He wants this movie to be realistic, and not a generic action movie that Bruce Willis would have starred in during his heyday as an action star.

First, let me tell you what I liked about this movie.  I liked the depth of the characters, and how Barrett resists taking the easy way out.  Jeremy is desperate, but completely unqualified to be a killer.  The thought of taking another life horrifies him, and he is not good at covering up his crimes.  Likewise, both Mike and Talia want to stop him, but they understand his desperation and the need to take down Hagan.  This isn't plot seasoning; it unfolds naturally and influences the characters' actions.

Unfortunately, the film suffers from some pretty serious problems.  First off is the script.  There are times when it plays dumb, there is some truly awful dialogue, and there are a number of plotholes (characters have information without us knowing how they got it).  Really, the script should have gone through at least one more rewrite to smooth out the kinks and the holes before going into production.

The acting is also flat.  All the cast members have shown charisma and ability in the past, but here, they're stiff and generally unconvincing.  I blame David Barrett, whose career consists of directing and producing episodes for a variety of TV shows (although he got his start as a stuntman, of all things).  I was reminded of the movie "The Astronaut's Wife" in the sense that a talented cast is rendered ineffective because the director is uncertain how far to push the emotionality of a scene.  Some scenes are too overwrought while others don't go far enough.  All the performances seem unrehearsed.  The only performance worth mentioning is Julian McMahon (who became famous for playing the sex-obsessed plastic surgeon Dr. Christian Troy on TV's "Nip/Tuck"), who is surprisingly menacing as Hagen's assassin.  Unfortunately, he has too little screen time.

Also problematic is the romance between Jeremy and Talia.  Not only do Duhamel and Dawson have zero chemistry together, their romance is undeveloped.  We're supposed to root for them to be together after one love scene.  For a movie that is supposed to derive a lot of its momentum from this relationship, that's a big problem.

The film is just over 90 minutes long.  For a comedy, that's the appropriate length, but an action movie, particularly a dramatic one like this, needs a longer running time.  The story needs room to breathe, and with an extra 10 to 15 minutes, Barrett could have developed the film's characters and themes a little bit more (for example, Jeremy's relationship with his fellow firefighters is undeveloped).

And yet, I liked the movie.  I liked how it went in unexpected directions and how it never took the easy way out.  There are some good scenes here and there, and the film is never uninteresting.  It is by no means a perfect movie, but I enjoyed it.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Desert Flower

2/4 Starring: Liya Kebede, Sally Hawkins, Timothy Spall, Juliet Stevenson Rated R for Some Violent Content, A Scene of Sexuality and Language The problem with "Desert Flower" is not that Waris Dirie's story isn't suited for the cinematic treatment or that the actress playing her isn't acceptable.  The problem is that director Sherry Hormann doesn't do a good job of telling it.  This is a poorly focused film that can't decide what it wants to be about or what it wants to say. As is the case with many a true story, the life of Waris Dirie is too amazing to be made up by a Hollywood screenwriter.  This woman fled an arranged marriage as a child, spent years as a servant to a Somali diplomat in England, survived on the streets, and was discovered by a fashion photographer while working as a janitor.  Then she became a supermodel and UN Ambassador in the fight against female genital mutilation. Waris experienced a lot in her life.  Telling it all in a...
Read more

The Road

3.5/4 Starring: Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Charlize Theron Rated R for Some Violence, Disturbing Images and Language "The Road" has to be the most downbeat, depressing and cynical movie I've ever seen.  That's not meant as a criticism, but a fact.  This is a tough movie to get through, but not a chore.  Those who venture in will find their time well spent, albeit not in a necessarily pleasant way.  Then again, if a movie is based off a novel by Cormac McCarthy, "pleasant" isn't a word one would hope to be used to describe it. The film takes place after the world has ended.  How it happened is not explained because it doesn't matter.  But any hope of the Earth recovering from what happened has long since gone.  A man (Mortensen) and his son (Smit-McPhee) are travelling together, trying to "get to the coast."  There are few people left, although considering what many are doing with the goal of survival, that's a good thing...
Read more

My Left Foot

 2/4 Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Brenda Fricker, Ray McAnally, Fiona Shaw, Alison Whelan Rated R (probably for Language and Brief Violence) "My Left Foot" feels like one of those movies designed to win Oscars and nothing else.  In fact, it did win two Oscars for the immortal Daniel Day-Lewis and Brenda Fricker, but apart from their strong work, there's not much else to remember about this movie.  It's well-acted, but all in all it's pretty dull. Christy Brown (Day-Lewis) is getting recognized for his work in order to raise money for the disabled.  Despite being a talented artist and writer, Christy is not the ideal candidate for the job.  He's an alcoholic jerk who makes no secret of his lust for women nor is he above using his disability to manipulate people into doing what he wants.  Interspersed with his attempts to seduce a woman tasked with looking after him while he awaits his entrance are vignettes from his childhood.  Most notably how his mothe...
Read more