Playing with Fire

People have said that this film is unintentionally hilarious and preachy, just another "disease of the week" tv film this one with Gary Coleman as a teenage arsonist. There is nothing funny about pyromania. A few years ago, Malcom X's widow Betty Shabazz was burned to death in an apartment fire that her young grandson set. Its just that Gary Coleman was such a sucky actor! I wish there was a nice way to say this but there is not. I am sorry about the terrible health problems that he has had to live with all his life. (His kidney condition and treatments stunted his growth). Its just a little bit of him goes a very long way. I admit I liked to watch Diffrent Strokes as a kid, but what is that the poet says, "As a man I put away childish things". What I remember about this film is how stupid Coleman's parents were they didn't even realize what an evil little s#$t he was! Its like he could have burned the house down and they wouldn't have said boo. Cicley Tyson and Yaphet Kotto as a fire chief who tries to help Coleman give able support and Coleman makes a nice PSA at the end about arson, but this film is really unintentionally funny in a lot of ways. I remember when it was first shown on NBC, they had one of those "parental discretion advised" warnings at the beginning and I couldn't understand why after seeing it.

This one is up there with "Star Wars Holiday Special" only not that bad. I remember watching this as a kid and being bored and amused at the same time. I think Gary Coleman was attempting to actually do "drama" in this ill-written attempt to enlighten the world about arson and it just didn't work.

Basically, you have Coleman's character who is having trouble in school, friends and family (obviously) and the more stress he comes under, the more fires he sets to public property. No, he doesn't turn to drugs or alcohol or teen suicide... he's got a disease that causes him to set fires! How dramatic! His parents seems incredibly stupid, not realizing that he's mentally anguished and no one suspects Coleman as the arsonist until he gets spotted, blah, blah, blah. It's pretty obvious how the plotline goes as well as the ending.

Probably one of the funniest parts is Coleman's "evil" expression during one of the blazes, his eyes lit up from the flames in front of him with this "burn you bastard, burn!" expression. Can you imagine Arnold as evil? Yeah, I laughed my ass off, too.

If you ever see this on TV again, which you probably won't, watch it if you want to kill two hours of your life. It's incredibly bad, stupid and absurdly funny at the same time.

I saw it when it aired, and I don't think it ever aired again. I would like to have it on DVD. The story was weak and Gary's acting wasn't that great. The camera work was good. I thought it was funny that everyone seemed to know that Gary was in the area every time one of these mysterious fires started.