FIRE WITH FIRE. Directed by Duncan Gibbins, written by Bill Phillips, Warren Skaaren, and Paul and Sharon Boorstin; produced by Gary Nardino for Paramount. Starring Craig Sheffer and Virginia Madsen. Rated PG-13 (a little vulgar langluage, some discreetly-filmed sex).
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Fire with Fire is a well-acted teenage romance movie with some interesting twists and turns. The emphasis is clearly on the romance, though, at all times, eventually to the exclusion of reality and common sense. But who needs common sense when you've got true love, right?
The course of such love never does run smoothly, of course, but Joe (Sheffer) and Lisa (Madsen) seem to face an especially rocky road. After their first momentary glimpse of each other, when they fell instantly and deeply in love, the affair is stymied. Joe, you see, is an inmate—at an "honor camp" in the north woods, but a convict nonetheless. And Lisa is only a little less a prisoner, in a nearby Catholic girls' school, where the nuns are still nuns, in habits (both kinds) and attitudes.
But not to worry, the lovers do get together. Rather ingeniously, in fact. And since both are attractive, smart and likeable, their story makes enjoyable viewing.
Unfortunately, while staying attractive and more-or-less likeable, they lose their smarts in the heat of passion. (And believe me, these two create enough romantic energy to steam up your glasses, just by looking at each other across the room!) The movie loses its intelligence—and its appeal—at about the same time.
Less jaded (and younger!) romantics than I, perhaps, might be enchanted by the lovers' flight from the world of adults, authority and reality. But, charmed as I am by the movie's first half, I think the last is pretty dumb.
Sheffer was unimpressive in his last movie, That Was Then, This Is Now. But he's in his element here as a romantic lead. He conveys Joe's sensitivity and intelligence as well as his strength. Madsen is as sexily ethereal here as she was in Creator or Electric Dreams. And Lisa's intelligence is as apparent as her physical beauty.
Fine as both actors are individually however, together their sum is something else. They make excellent screen lovers, when not all couples do, generating almost visible lines of animal magnetic force drawing their characters together.
The supporting characters in Fire with Fire are mostly too stereotyped to be very interesting. Although some of the kids provide a little fun, particularly at the dance Lisa engineers to get the boys to meet the girls. This scene is the best in the movie. It finds a way to provide plenty of steamy romance without insulting the viewers' or the characters' intelligence. Too bad the rest of the movie doesn't measure up.
May 28, 1986