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| Festivale online magazine, March, 1998 Firestorm movie review |
| Firestorm This has got to be one of the worst action flicks in history. It isn't as mean-spirited as some of Stallone's output (Cobra for instance) or as offensively lame as Starship Troopers. It is a rarer beast than that. It's a dopey action flick.
Jesse Graves (Howie Long who used to be an American football player) is a smoke-jumper -- a firefighter who parachutes into bushfires. I don't think we have them in Australia and if we did, they'd probably be retired for having a death-wish. He plummets into areas surrounded by fires and rescues little girls from burning cabins. So did his boss Wynt Perkins (Scott Glenn) until a Recreational Vehicle falls on him during a rescue and leaves him with a limp. Glenn's limp changes legs regularly and he goes through the movie like a man who is wondering what happened to his career. Jesse's a handy man with an axe and a chainsaw, a big bland character who probably grew up wanting to be Li'l Abner.
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| William Forsythe plays a Hannibal Lecter wannabe who escapes from a Wyoming prison with a mixed assortment of former wrestlers, rapists with chemical imbalances and other bit players. He's trying to get to the upteen million bucks he stashed away before being captured. Like the forest fire, Forsythe is all over the place, hammily tossing guys off cliffs and blowing them away with shotguns so he doesn't have to share his loot. Suzy Amis is an ornithologist who is captured by Forsythe and his band. Her Daddy was a marine, so she knows how to kick guys in the balls, construct camouflaged hiding places and light fires with a zippo. Dean Semler, the director, is the Australian cinematographer who won an Oscar (R) for his work on Dances With Wolves. Thanks to him, and Stephen Winton, the film is visually beautiful. Sweeping aerial shots of Canadian forests, planes water bombing fires and some of the ground shots are stunning. Unfortunately, the movie is dopey. Dialogue meant to be serious gets loud laughs, Forsythe's death scene is hilariously bad and Suzy Amis just seems to be there to give Howie Long someone to rescue and talk to. The fire's impressive and the computer graphic shots of waves of flame roaring down on our heroes during the firestorm are interesting without being particularly convincing. Firestorm is a dumb, amiable, by the numbers action flick. A definite "weekly video rental only" movie. I doubt whether it would've got a commercial cinema release in this country if Semler hadn't directed it. |
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Terry Frost 12 Mar 1998 For credits and official site details, click here. Search Festivale for more |
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| Just the facts:
Title: Firestorm (1998) | ||
| The Players: Howie Long, Scott Glenn, William Forsythe, Suzy Amis, Christianne Hirt | Official website | ||
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