On Fire is about as as subtle in its messaging as the raging wildfire that consumes all before it. But given how the most obvious evidence fails to get through to those who most need to hear it, perhaps we need our media to be outright polemical. This eco-thriller wears everything on its sleeve and is direct in its desire to highlight the human cost of climate change, but it’s let down by its obviously low budget and a trite script.
Dave (Peter Facinelli) isn’t overly concerned when a wildfire begins tearing through a neighbouring community. Still, the builder begins to feel his blue collar sizzle when local reports get ever more urgent in their delivery so ventures out to the local store for supplies. Of course, he does this at the time the fire reaches the town, which cuts him off from his eight months pregnant wife Sarah (Fiona Dourif), teenage son Clay (Asher Angel) and ailing father George (Lance Henriksen). Dave must negotiate a police roadblock and then somehow usher his family to safety as the fire gets ever more intense.
The story telling is stripped back to charcoaled bone. There’s a threat that must be escaped, and for the most part that is exactly what we get. The characters are archetypal – a God-fearing working-class family – and rarely get any further embellishment. Similarly, and most damningly, the visual effects are sadly very basic, dampening the sense of tension and danger from the fire more comprehensively than helicopters carrying swimming pools worth of lake water ever could.
What does work is the introduction of rookie 911 call agent Kayla (Ashlei Foushee) whose increasingly harrowing call load finally intersects with Dave and family’s situation. Foushee is excellent as Kayla undergoes a brutal, thankfully only figurative, baptism of fire. Her narrative thread gives wider context to the situation. The simple images of more and more incidents flashing up on her screen and her visible recoiling every time her queue light switches red for a waiting call are extremely effective. It’s also always great to have the gravitas of Lance Henriksen, even if the veteran character actor’s role is sadly limited.
On Fire does what it can with its budget, but it falls short in several areas beyond its resources. Some have criticised the film for foregrounding its Christian element, but besides a few brief mentions of having faith and some ‘no atheists in a foxhole’ subtext, there’s little overt religiosity. It feels like an unnecessary stone cast in its direction given how much legitimate criticism there is. A film which has, ‘Fuck you, fire!’ as an actual line of dialogue has greater issues than a whiff of spirituality. Generally, On Fire‘s heart is very much in the right place, but it fails badly in the areas it needs to convince.
Available to stream from Mon 15 Apr 2024