Deadly Blaze - Heißer als die Hölle

Although I have been a firefighter for 23 years, I make it a point to not be overly critical when the technical "advisors" drop the ball as they so often have (even on Backdraft and Ladder 49). However, the absolute disregard for any reasonable correctness in this abomination is unforgivable.

But the firefighting aspects aside, this movie to date stands alone as the worst that I have ever seen. Ever. I accept some of the blame for not ejecting the thing but it was like a train wreck. I could not look away.

As we all can attest, some movies by virtue of their awfulness can be fun. (i.e. Ed Wood's side-splitting "Plan-9 From Outer Space") This was not one of them. "Ablaze" is one of the many Hollywood debacles that must beg the question, "where do they get the money?".

I have been interested in disaster films since seeing the ?Poseidon Adventure? in 1972 (among the better made) and over the years I have seen many, some good, many bad. I rented this film,interested by the box?s description. When I actually started to watch it, I felt like I was experiencing deja vu. In 1979, another film was released called ?City on Fire? with an identical plot involving a city, an industrial complex, and firestorm. Having seen it about three times, I am somewhat familiar with the plot. ?Inferno? is nearly identical, in fact it is if someone took that other script, altered some things and came up with this. The kid trapped in the house, the hospital trapped in the firestorm, the scaffolding falling on people running from the hospital, the guy running into the burning building to retrieve a file, and the gauntlet of fire people must run to escape the hospital are a number of examples. Another person stated that some scenes looked like stock footage from the 70s, the reason for this is that many of those scenes appeared to have been lifted from ?City on Fire.? This film was an embarrassment to those performing in it and the writer should be ashamed of themselves. I am surprised the original scriptwriter did not try and sue for copyright infringement. They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, in this case it is not.

This movie is a page out of movie history, it first came out as 'Striking distance' the cop car chase scene in the beginning is exactly the same as the chase scene in 'Striking distance' complete with the cars rolling down the embankment at the end of the chase (I thought the bad guy was going to get out and shoot Ice T). Oh by the way, what happens to Ice T later on in the movie? . Then as the movie progresses, it turns into 'City on fire' a disastrous disaster movie from 1979 complete with scenes right out of 'City of fire'. I mean the actual scenes in 'City on fire' were cut and pasted into 'Ablaze'. Like the scene where the nurse opens the closet door and gets smoked. I wonder how they got away with that? I was waiting for Shelly Winters to make a cameo. (They could of cut and pasted her to!). What a Bomb!

Absolutely terrible. How can abominations like this ever be made? A decent premise (city put in danger by big corporation, heroically saved by firefighters), but an absolute cliche ridden script of the worst order, hammy acting by a cast who don't seem to know whether to play it for laughs, and very cheap and repetitive special effects. Must have been a stuntmans hog heaven, because we get to see lots of people wandering around on fire and falling from buildings for no good reason. Ice-T, despite taking second billing, appears only for about a minute at the start and a minute at the end. Tom Arnold picks up his cheque by sleepwalking through his role, and the rest of the cast must have been desperate for work and are desperately under rehearsed or just unfamiliar with the script.

You know something is badly wrong when in the intro scene, a man sets on fire by the side of an extremely large lake, yet prefers to wander around going 'argh, argh' rather than THROWING HIMSELF IN THE LAKE! The final climactic scene is frankly laughable - not even 'good in a bad way' as people make mistakes that they simply wouldn't do in real life (walking around slowly and having a look at the pretty fires rather than running like hell). Do yourself a favour and avoid this turkey.

This film is a waste of time. Much of the footage was taken from the 1979 film,City on fire,starring Leslie Nielson,. Ice-T had very few lines. Go to the video store and rent the original,City on fire, with better cast. Leave Ablaze alone, not worth watching,a waste of time.