In the Fire

This movie is about an educated woman and doctor who came to a rural village to help a father and his son, who seemingly have some supernatural powers. Village peasants believe this kid is evil and a seed of Satan. As a scientific-thinking and rationalist woman, she is not only trying to help the boy and his father; she also has to fight the ignorance and bigotry of village peasants. On paper, this story sounds quite decent, but unfortunately, the execution is pretty flat and bad. Some scenes, such as a mother's death in a horse accident, are extremely poorly photographed; the editing is appalling; unrelated scenes blend together without making sense or cohesion; and all characters are one-dimensional and have flat personalities due to the lack of character development in this film. The lead actor's acting is stiff, unconvincing, and really bad. Amber Heard was horribly miscast in her part, and her acting was extremely poor. Eduardo Noriega, who plays the boy's father, is also quite wooden and flat. This movie project really seems to be a low-budget TV movie rather than a high-budget movie made for cinema saloons, and I wonder if Amber Heard really believed that this movie was going to be her comeback vehicle, and if she really believed that, unfortunately, she was really wrong.

This was a nice try and the story seemed interesting but the execution by the actors (other than the main young boy) all fell flat. No chemistry on the screen or believable dialogue. To say it was an underwhelming movie is being polite. The cinematography was decent but the editing and continuity was very amateur hour.

I honestly tried to enjoy this because the story was intriguing. Oh and how it was scored could have been much better. It just missed on so many levels. Unfortunately I think casting Amber Heard will make it box office fodder. Hopefully the director's next project will give them a better opportunity at success because this was definitely not a hit.

'Into the fire' had an interesing premis, was very visually engaging, and the acting was good. The plot moved a little slowly, but it became more enjoyable as the film went on. I think some aspects of the plot could have been explored a little more effectively within the run time. The 3 main characters were all fairly well developed, though I do feel that they lacked unique character traits, and there were interesting aspects of each character that were never addressed, especially with the doctor. I think more character work would have really improved the film overall, as I sometimes struggled to follow what each character was actually motivated by.

On the nose predictable, but bizarre in execution- Within minutes of the Lead showing up, it was clear a modern woman threw on a costume and time-warped into a period piece to demonstrate her gallantry and sexual fortitude, even though she --spoiler-- which pitched the narrative onto the pyre. Not sure what the take-away was supposed to be from this. I had no reason to buy-in, no protagonist (just an activist), and really nothing to admire or despise. This had some potential, and it seemed like some good shots and catchy sound design were present, but it fizzled more than it sizzled and ended up as a flame out for me.

No pun intended - I reckon it is not even permitted to talk about elephants in the room. So pointing out the obvious is out the window and we'll get to the meat (again no pun intended) of the movie, instead of its players.

So the story that I would not really put into the horror category, but more into the thriller genre, is overall fine or at least decent. It is predictable, but it does work. And while the female lead may not impress everyone, it is the non English actors who are doing the heavy lifting (no pun intended - and you may know them from a lot of other stuff if you watch a lot of movies).

Hopefully this works - and as they say ... lucky number three - but back to the morality and your own moral compass that will still be important ... and your liking ... outside the story ... talking of the story: it at least looks good (no pun intended here either). So yes I do feel it is rated a bit too low (for reasons you can guess yourself), but it also is not great ... you probably will have better things to do with your time anyway .. unless you are a fan of course.