BroadcastChic Excellent, a Must See

Huievest Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

ChicDragon It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

Isbel A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

John M Upton Well it was just about watchable but that is where the positive points grind to halt, probably just like the career of pretty much everyone associated with this mess.Plot holes the size of Nebraska, dodgy acting, even more dodgy fire fighting and wall to wall recycled stock footage of forest fires interspersed with some terrible special effects are the main features of a film with a plot so blinding obvious you could see what was going to happen a mile off.Large slices of the plot have been lifted almost word for word from Jaws, the defiant kid who gets into trouble, the Mayor who refuses to close the road because of the tourist peak, and even more amazingly one character then goes and admits this! Anyway, the fire gets out of control thanks to their local friendly loony with the fireworks (who anyone with half a brain will identify in about a millisecond after he appears) and then its all solved as if by magic by blowing up the dam - this being achieved with the lamest explosions in the history of demolishing things.The whole film leaves a lot of unanswered questions - What happened to the fire tankers? Where did that convenient abandoned mine appear from and then just as promptly disappear to? Who put that idiot woman in charge? Did we really need the pointless closing scene at the dance with the flashbacks? What was with the random pointless slow motion shots? What on earth was Dean Stockwell (as the Mayor) doing in this rubbish? If you like a laugh at cheap poorly researched B Movie style disaster flicks (and there seem to be an awful lot of them floating around) then go and find this on DVD - my local supermarket is flogging this travesty for just 97p - and I expect many will still think they have been robbed!!

tim000_1998 I have seen so many movies about fires but by far this is the worst one. I like the female firefighter idea but her character was not fully developed. The visual effects are OK for a low budget movie. The acting. Well this is a different story. First of all the kids are really stupid in this film. Kylie deserves what she gets. Her boyfriend is silly and more importantly Mary, the little girl, she looks like she is having fun at the park while the fire is on. The mayor character played by Stockwell is underdeveloped supporting character. It is too bad that they could not use him. Soulless characters, dull story, OK visual effects and bad acting. I think this is a deadly combination. Rent another movie or watch something else on TV.

Mitiori I rented this from Netflix (luckily) because I wanted to see Janet Gunn in something other than Silk Stalkings. This movie did not do her any favors in my ability to critique her acting ability in movies.10 painful minutes in and I couldn't take it anymore. It's still on right now as I write this painful review. Really lame dialogue is going on while flying from (?) a fire site. Why is she whining about her daughter back in LA ("that crazy town", according to the apparently hick No. CA. pilot, like it's so far away) while battling a strange fire? My limit was reached when I saw the lame fireman didn't know to stop, drop and roll while his leg was mysteriously on fire through his fire proof suit.Oy.

useonce Warning: Contains Spoilers! This film (if one can really call it a film), is probably the worst I have ever seen. I stopped watching halfway through it, but forced myself to watch the rest after logging into imdb, to give this comment. About 11 mins. in, this happens; (the "firefighters" are removing vegetation to stop the fire from spreading). Darcy: "Listen, the wind has shifted. Get everybody out of here NOW." Suddenly, ten-feet-tall flames are shooting out of nowhere, and most of the men get knocked over, then run away. A firefighter gets knocked down by a falling burning tree. His pants catch fire(!), but Darcy puts it out, and drags him to "safety". There is almost no smoke, and very little fire around, except for when the ten-feet-tall flames suddenly erupt out of nowhere. That scene was so incredibly unrealistic, that I couldn't watch it without grinding my teeth and curling my toes. Much of the "film" is that bad, or worse.The scene when blowing the dam is very much up to your imagination. To me, it just looks like they're blasting a few holes in the side of a hill (with a few inches of water on the other side), and you don't get to see any water flowing out of the reservoir.I'll watch this again, when the sun turns blue..