-"You my friend are looking for something a little more substantial".
-"Like? And make it simple".
-"Simple... like a radioactive, ah, maniac that kills before he screws. Is that simple enough?"
The low-budget (TV-quality) set in Florida feature "BURNDOWN" plays out like a conventional conspiracy-laced thriller with concerns of meltdown implications, as the mothballed power plant tries to cover up a possible involvement of what points to a radioactive serial killer terrorizing a small town. The investigating sheriff (Peter Firth in laidback mode) is put on vacation due to stepping on the toes of the power plant's influential chief of operations (the robust Hal Orlandini) and that of a leaked story by the sheriff's sly small-time reporter girlfriend (the smoking Cathy Moriarty) implicating them.
I don't know how faithful it's to the source material --- Stuart Collin's novel. But the way it was advertised and the opening nighttime attack sequence kind of makes you believe you are getting a serial killer premise. And I wished they had focused on that side of the story more than they did. The thorough script seems to centre on the scheming going on behind the scenes at the power plant. Even then there's more time showing our sheriff on vacation and kicking back with his girlfriend. Those few, effective moments involving the serial killer created intrigue and unease. We get POV shots, catch glimpses of the killer's mutated hand gushing with green ooze. He claws faces, breaks necks and then the screen freezes on an inverted image of victim's face. It's not until the cops arrive on the scene we see the aftermath.
Too bad there's a lot of leisured plotting consisting of surveillance, tailing and securitizing, than anything really resembling suspense. When it comes around to its reveal you can't help but be somewhat unsatisfied with its heavy-handed, if preposterous reasoning and left bemused by the abrupt ending. The actual tone throughout can be a little jarring in what feels like slight moments of morbid humor in the script, yet the material just like the performances do have that going through the motions impression. Context should probably be a lot drearier than what's actually delivered.
