The Firing Line

There's mindless action and then there's The Firing Line which is an hour and a half of non-stop gunfire and explosions. Now, I like action movies; I'm all about watching stuff blow up for cheap thrills and the adrenaline of a tense battle, but I can't sit through a whole movie that offers nothing else.

Think of it as a hamburger. The action is the meat. In this case there's a lot of it, but it's the cheap stuff and not cooked very well. Meat is all well and good, but don't you like stuff with it? I mean you don't eat just the patty by itself do you? I'm partial to some cheese, onions, pickles, mustard, and ketchup myself.

So lets say those things you take on your action burger are plot, character development, atmosphere, and all those literary things that make a story well-rounded. This movie has little of any of that and what's there tastes like it's been out in the sun a little too long. You're left with a lot of meat that's not the best anyway with almost nothing tasty to perk it up.

Now I'm hungry and I haven't even started on the “plot” yet. Why did I have to choose a hamburger analogy? Slight pause for a Burger King run.....

There's a war going on in the South American wilderness. Mark is the hero of the day, but after his victory he finds out he's being heralded as the killer of the enemy leader he captured. When he questions what happened (as in who really killed the enemy leader) he is arrested and tortured as an enemy conspirator. A woman he spoke to in a bar (Shannon Tweed) is arrested as a collaborator. So Mark, being the man's man that he is busts out of confinement leaving a trail of battered soldiers, saves Shannon, and takes off into the wilderness. He convinces the rebels that he has come to realize the people he was fighting for are dirty, and now he wants revenge. So he becomes their greatest champion, and they blow everything they can find to kingdom come.

It's simple, mindless, and non-stop gunfire. The acting is less than stellar. Most of it's downright bad. Shannon has a few OK moments which I guess is why she's the headlining star. The music soundtrack sounds like an old Nintendo game. That might not be a bad thing for some people I guess.

Despite being so heavy on action it's not done all that well. For example, one guy acts like he's firing while the other guy falls down although sometimes it's obvious that the actors doing the shooting and the effects that are supposed to be creating the illusion that it's real are out of sync.

The explosions, though look painfully like a stuntman getting a safe distance from the blast zone then jumping as if being thrown by the blast. And why do people on fire in movies never stop, drop, and roll? Didn't they every attend elementary school?

MORALITY:

This flick has a huge body count. People drop by the handfuls from gunfire and explosions. Despite the furiously flying bullets there is little to no blood. Even when a guy gets shot in the crotch there is not a single drop of red. There is some torture, molestation, and allusion to rape.

There's a sex scene, but we see virtually nothing of it. Shannon strips off for a swim but her nudity is obscured by water.

There is a lot of strong language throughout.

SPIRITUALITY:

The hero has to admit he's been fighting for the wrong side. He thought he was on the side of good only to find out those people weren't who they had appeared to be. It's unfortunate when we discover something like that in our own lives. We put our trust in pastors, leaders, maybe even sometimes friends only to find out they are something different. Everyone is going to fail sooner or later, people are going to let us down and that's part of being human; it's another matter for a person to be a wolf in sheep's clothing. It seems to me that a lot of those with issues revolving around Christians are ones who have been burned by someone claiming to be righteous while serving evil rather than Christ.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

I suppose I can say that at least this is not a total bore of a film, but that's about the best I can say about it. Don't bother with this one unless it takes absolutely no effort to check out.

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