“Playing with Fire” (PG) No stars

THE producers of “Playing With Fire” could not have foreseen the local situation that would greet it on release in Australia.  But even from its get-go, its title is a big lie. 

An initial opening sequence involves the rescue of three children from a burning house in a California State Forest. From that point, the film replaces the reality of landscape-ravaging fire with a ho-hum so-so wacky story about how four fire-fighters find themselves responsible for the children’s welfare. 

“Playing With Fire” lacks narrative or moral backbone. Writers Dan Ewen and Matt Lieberman provide a collection of silly (therefore, in producer-think, what the public yearns for to alleviate the boredom) sporadic moments in search of a dramatic link, apparently assuming that stupid behaviour will invite laughter.  Building a feature film on such a frail framework needs creative judgement not apparent here. 

Firefighter Jake (John Cena) commands a four-man team who extinguish forest fires by parachuting into them! Jake is obsessed with expectation of promotion. There is no chemistry between him and the National Parks Service biologist who is expected to supply the film’s love interest. The two younger children (Christian Converey and Finley Rose Slayter) would benefit from better discipline. A little girl’s faeces is not good comedy material. A hero who survives jumping from a hovering helicopter carrying in his arms the parachute that he should be wearing on his back is more than credulity can bear. 

The man who put those elements and many more on to our screen is director Andy Fickman. 

See “Playing with Fire” if you must. By comparison with the present bushfire crisis, the way its fire-fighting characters go about their tasks is risible. It’s not what we need right now.

At all cinemas