Trial by Fire

Entertaining movie but one of the most predictable movies I've seen lately. The writers tried to throw in every known plot twist: Her sister just happening to be camping in the fire area, the little girl going to the bathroom, but her parents looking for her everywhere but the bathroom, the bathroom door being stuck, her just happening to be on a date with one of the instructor when the whole thing goes down, the whole situation of a rookie being taken on a fire jump, etc. Maybe I watch too much TV, but when I can predict the whole movie after watching 5 minutes of it, does not show much originality on the part of the writers.

Trial By Fire is not a perfect movie, nor does it try to be. The story may be unrealistic with a fair number of plot holes, the script may have its weak spots, the pace may be lagging and some of the character development may be lacking. Flaws aside, I didn't think it was that bad. The film is shot quite well, the soundtrack and sound give some atmosphere and the stunts are bold and daring. I love the titular character as well, I just love how tough and brave she is, and the acting while not award-worthy is reasonable with Brooke Burns doing a good job in the lead role. Overall, not great but I didn't think it was that bad either. 6/10 Bethany Cox

This is a great film - an homage to Firefighters all around the world - especially smoke jumper - the so-called elite of firefighters :)

Interesting to note, that smoke jumpers were first deployed by the US in 1940 - which was a secret US government experiment during the start of WW 2, to stimulate male testosterone levels in high stress situation. But the experiment went sideways - not going as expected - creating firefighters who do crazy and irrational stuff, things better left alone - such as parachuting out of planes into flaming infernos, and getting impaled by trees.

Nonetheless, the program proved effective, with US smoke jumpers being deployed to this very day - unlike China, for example, since Chinese men lack the bravery and the guts to parachute into flaming infernos - and rather let the fires burn.

The raging fire of war, between Russia and Ukraine, being an example of that - since the Chinese elite is very reluctant to douse the fire of war - being afraid of the 'red heat' coming from Russia. In short, China should side with goodness, decency and virtue - as symbolized by the US Fire-Fighting leadership.

However, it must also emphasized, that due to climate change, wild fires are increasing all over the world. Hence it's imperative that technology is improved to fight fires - both in rural and urban areas - such as deploying drones and robots in the long run (and perhaps even 'forcefields' to smother fires) once fire-fighting technology has reached that level - which the entire International Community should work towards, in my opinion :)

Predictable plot but not bad: family drama in which two highly competitive sisters take different routes to their parents' attention. One is feminine and soft, the other a lean, mean, fighting machine (literally).

All the family infighting, and the fighter daughter's struggles to earn the respect of her fellow firefighters, rang mostly true if not breaking any new ground, although I did not find that character's physiology or physicality particularly convincing even when she was supposedly staggering along under huge loads during training. Her trainer's romantic overtures were predictable but not overdone.

Where the movie really fell apart was once the wildfire started. Not much passed the common sense smell test even if you know as little about the profession as I do. For our heroine to be the movie's biggest action hero required that a whole lot of characters with far greater expertise do incredibly stupid and unprofessional things to take themselves out of the running.

It might be the fault of the script focusing on triteness or a director addicted to dramatic overkill instead of coaxing the human truths out of the actors, but basically this was a potentially good story that overshot too many marks.

To those of you who are firefighters who review this movie, don't you think we already understand that it isn't realistic?? It's called poetic license, and it's done all the time. I don't mean any disrespect to your profession and I greatly appreciate the expertise that it takes to do your job, but can't we just appreciate it for what it is, an entertaining movie??? I'm a nurse and a former scientist, but I don't bag all the movies where I see inconsistencies with reality, I just take it that the producers haven't had the years of education it takes to fully understand the job, and enjoy the film. Give the movie a break. If you take it for what it is, it's quite enjoyable.