2 out of 5

Director: David Barrett

It’s better than it is bad and attempts to go through its paces in terms of plotting setup and pacing, but ‘Fire with Fire’ is nonetheless a pure DTV film, over-serious, oddly cast, and not quite effective enough on any particular level to be a good movie.  We’re introduced to fireman Josh Duhamel during an “intense” blaze where our “hero” has gone back into the building to rescue something for the owner.  Which ends up being some old Scotch that the owner then, in thanks, donates to Joshy.  So that makes complete sense.  But it’s just character padding – Josh is impulsive, and a womanizer – to juxtapose the relative importance of his decision making when he’s witness to a violent gang shooting committed by Aryan Vincent D’Onofrio, in one of the strangest casting decisions on the planet.  I don’t quite think of Vince as a character actor, and though ‘Fire’ – and D’Onofrio – obviously want to humanize the over-the-top movie badguy, the Southern accent and sociopath uber-calm mannerisms just feel off as portrayed by Vince.  Josh goes into witness protection in prep for testifying and totes falls for hot Marshall Rosario Dawson, so since he’s a womanizer (remember that character building) it’s super important when word gets to the Nazis of Duhamenl’s whereabouts and Ms. Marshall’s life is threatened.  Also cue “we’ve only got him for 4 days” scenes of Bruce Willis cut in as a lieutenant who paves the way for Josh to take his revenge.  So my glibness should underline that this is action movie biz-as-usual, no surprises.  Except for that casting.  A lot of recognizable names are – not wasted, exactly – but worked in to small, one note roles, perhaps thanks to director David Barrett’s Hollywood connections as an accomplished stunt director – but instead of adding quality it just clutters up the film with extra faces.  The untalented puddin’ boy 50 Cent shows up in a completely pointless subplot that exists only to distill the viciousness of Josh’s revenge and give the plot leeway to let him off scot-free.  Much, much negativity, but on the whole the film is handled very effectively for a low budget, and the fireman connection is finally worked in well for the last scene with some undoubtedly dangerous but totally live fire effects.  And even though the script isn’t exactly smooth with its explanations, it does more work than most to give us some logic and to show that turning into a cold-blooded killer does come, for Josh, with some vomit-inducing doubts.

The extras on the bluray are of that funny over-loaded B-movie quality, where everyone has something to say about the film (or so it seems), but it’s all either the same or somewhat pointless.  The director / DP commentary shows some thought in regard to color and shot style, and it’s nice that Barrett had a desire to block scenes freely to allow his actors full movement, but the duo literally re-mention these same concepts again and again and again throughout the entire track.  So just listen to 20 minutes if you’re interested and you’ve got the whole thing.  The actor commentary is typically pointless, Vincent’s hopefully recorded separately because his thoughts on trying to flesh out his character show an actual actor’s considerations as composed to the fuck-faced “oh there I am” comments of the other two dudes.  I’m surprised they got D’Onofrio; it’s generally telling for movies of this nature when they can’t get the main stars, and the other two actor’s on the track have such minimal roles…  yeah.  Vince disappears from speaking after his initial scene.  Most of the track is silent.

There’s a short making of, which is of interest because of the work done in setting up for the fire sequence.  It’s a bit stuffed with film footage you already saw, but it confirms that they tossed those actors in their with real flames, and it does make that scene effective.  And then way too extensive interviews (the uncut 20 minute interviews that was spliced up for that making of) with people you don’t care about, only important to justify to yourself that 50 is an idiot and that most producers are, indeed, just salesmen.  But Vinnie Jones – the only one of interest, so of course it’s only a brief 5 minute talk – does say he only did this ’cause D’Onofrio was there, so it’s nice to hear that.

What else?  Nothing?  Okay.