Firestorm

Firestorm (1998)

Runtime: 89 minutes

Directed by: Dean Semler

Starring: Howie Long, Scott Glenn, William Forsythe, Suzy Amis, Christianne Hirt

From: 20th Century Fox

Sorry for not posting here in a few days; I just haven't had the time to watch any films in the past few days due to other committments. I will post another review Monday night. For now, this silly late 90's action piece:

Yet again, this is a movie I was inspired to see after it was mentioned in a messageboard thread recently, although for a long while I have thought about seeing it. I figured it'd be a dopey late 90's action film going in, and I was not disappointed in that regard. The movie is only average yet I can say it's watchable.

As a worldwide audience reads this and not everyone is a sports fan, I'll talk about star Howie Long. Before the movie he was a famous and highly regarded National Football League player; that's American Football. After he retired he spent many years (and still does today) sitting behind a desk offering his comments along with other panelists during the pre and post game shows. He also tried his hand at acting and considering he was a large muscular man, I am not surprised someone tried to make him another action regular. It did not quite work out, though... he only did a few other movies in supporting roles. At least he had something else to fall back on; in addition, he has two sons who play in the NFL currently.

This movie in particular, it reminds me that there isn't enough coverage of firemen; there's plenty on the police, but not so much on the firemen. Considering how tough their job is, they deserve more. This focuses on smokejumpers, which is all the more rigorous as they have to jump into the most rugged of wilderness to fight forest fires. As for the plot of this schlock, let me quote the plot description Letterboxd has up:

"Firefighter Jesse Graves has to save ornithologist Jennifer and other people caught in a forest fire, which was set up by the lawyer of convicted killer Earl Shaye, who escaped from the prison with several of his inmates posing as firefighters to recover $37,000,000 in stashed loot."

Yep, pretty rote and cliche. This isn't bad yet I can't say it's good or better. Long is acceptable in his role and it helps that there are old pros like Scott Glenn, William Forsythe as the villain (he was no Richie Madano in Out for Justice, unfortunately) and Suzy Amis. Despite the nice scenery (both California and British Columbia play rural Wyoming) this does not rise about average; there are random direct to video low budget action films from the 90's that provide more heat and will light your kindling, so to speak. It lacks the spark to make it good.

Really, it's not worth going more in depth on the plot so let me mention one last thing: I was quite shocked to discover that Inglorious Basterds was not the first movie after Cat People to use Bowie's Cat People (Putting Out Fire); this movie actually beat it to the punch, 11 years beforehand. It's now known as being "on the nose"; I am not complaining, mind you; I think the song is the cat's pajamas.