Firestorm
2/4
Starring: Howie Long, William Forsythe, Suzy Amis, Scott Glenn
Rated R for Violence and Language
"Firestorm" starts of fairly well. It assembles all the cliches of the action genre: the motley crew making small talk before going into the violent fray, the slo-mo, the hero who saves the cute little blonde girl (and the dog) when his superior thinks she can't be saved. One of his crew even throws his helmet in the air when he emerges with the little girl in his arms.
I was grinning to myself watching this. Not so much affectionately, although I sorely miss action movies that take place in sunshine with no guys in capes. No, I was smiling because it was so overplayed. This sequence is so overblown that Dean Semler had to have intended it to be a parody. Then again, considering how deadly serious he takes the rest of the movie, which is unbelievably silly, maybe not.
Jesse Graves (Long) is the new chief of his unit of Smokejumpers (people who leap into the inferno of forest fires to contain it when no one else can). A few months after rescuing the family of stranded campers, in which his chief, a wise (a term I use extremely loosely) man named Wynt (Glenn), was injured, another fire has started. But it's just a cover; the fire was deliberately set to allow for a few prisoners, led by Randy Earl Shaye (Forsythe), to escape into freedom. Naturally, Jesse ends up right in the middle of this (by accident, of course) and fights to save the day. Especially since they have a pretty ornithologist named Jennifer (Amis) as a hostage.
As is usually the problem for most movies like this, the script is terrible. The characters are stupid, and the plot, in addition to being really silly, isn't particularly interesting. It's not that fires can't be a good backdrop for a movie, because "Backdraft" proved that they can. But the script spends more time explaining the fire trivia to set up the plot than it does creating characters worth caring about and a compelling narrative.
The acting befits a movie of this quality. Which is to say, it's not very good. Howie Long is pretty bad. If he were any more wooden, he'd have caught fire before the trees. With his intense gaze and gravelly voice, one would think that William Forsythe would make an ideal villain. Sadly, Shaye isn't really interesting or threatening. Future Mrs. James Cameron Suzy Amis is usually pretty stiff, but at least she's better than Long. It's kind of sad to see Scott Glenn in a movie like this since it's so far below his talents.
The film was directed by Dean Semler, who won an Oscar for Best Cinematography for "Dances with Wolves." I don't remember much of the movie that won Kevin Costner two Oscars, but this film is neither well-directed, nor, surprisingly, good looking. The film is stale, and Semler overdoes the fire so much that the most interesting parts are the ones where there isn't a flame in sight. Admittedly, the effects in the climax are kind of cool, but they're also very cheesy.
The film was originally an epic action film that was supposed to star Sylvester Stallone (for a whopping $20 million smackers to boot). Unfortunately the studio that was producing it went bankrupt, and 20th Century Fox bought the script but made it into a smaller movie. Frankly, they probably should have left it the way it was. It really could only have helped things.
Starring: Howie Long, William Forsythe, Suzy Amis, Scott Glenn
Rated R for Violence and Language
"Firestorm" starts of fairly well. It assembles all the cliches of the action genre: the motley crew making small talk before going into the violent fray, the slo-mo, the hero who saves the cute little blonde girl (and the dog) when his superior thinks she can't be saved. One of his crew even throws his helmet in the air when he emerges with the little girl in his arms.
I was grinning to myself watching this. Not so much affectionately, although I sorely miss action movies that take place in sunshine with no guys in capes. No, I was smiling because it was so overplayed. This sequence is so overblown that Dean Semler had to have intended it to be a parody. Then again, considering how deadly serious he takes the rest of the movie, which is unbelievably silly, maybe not.
Jesse Graves (Long) is the new chief of his unit of Smokejumpers (people who leap into the inferno of forest fires to contain it when no one else can). A few months after rescuing the family of stranded campers, in which his chief, a wise (a term I use extremely loosely) man named Wynt (Glenn), was injured, another fire has started. But it's just a cover; the fire was deliberately set to allow for a few prisoners, led by Randy Earl Shaye (Forsythe), to escape into freedom. Naturally, Jesse ends up right in the middle of this (by accident, of course) and fights to save the day. Especially since they have a pretty ornithologist named Jennifer (Amis) as a hostage.
As is usually the problem for most movies like this, the script is terrible. The characters are stupid, and the plot, in addition to being really silly, isn't particularly interesting. It's not that fires can't be a good backdrop for a movie, because "Backdraft" proved that they can. But the script spends more time explaining the fire trivia to set up the plot than it does creating characters worth caring about and a compelling narrative.
The acting befits a movie of this quality. Which is to say, it's not very good. Howie Long is pretty bad. If he were any more wooden, he'd have caught fire before the trees. With his intense gaze and gravelly voice, one would think that William Forsythe would make an ideal villain. Sadly, Shaye isn't really interesting or threatening. Future Mrs. James Cameron Suzy Amis is usually pretty stiff, but at least she's better than Long. It's kind of sad to see Scott Glenn in a movie like this since it's so far below his talents.
The film was directed by Dean Semler, who won an Oscar for Best Cinematography for "Dances with Wolves." I don't remember much of the movie that won Kevin Costner two Oscars, but this film is neither well-directed, nor, surprisingly, good looking. The film is stale, and Semler overdoes the fire so much that the most interesting parts are the ones where there isn't a flame in sight. Admittedly, the effects in the climax are kind of cool, but they're also very cheesy.
The film was originally an epic action film that was supposed to star Sylvester Stallone (for a whopping $20 million smackers to boot). Unfortunately the studio that was producing it went bankrupt, and 20th Century Fox bought the script but made it into a smaller movie. Frankly, they probably should have left it the way it was. It really could only have helped things.
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