In the Fire

For the record, this is not a Horror film. Everyone who watches it in expectation of horror will be disappointed. There are some mysterious events, and I must say, that I liked this aspect the least about the movie.

In The Fire is certainly not a bad movie. Neither are the actors doing bad, nor is the music out of place. Yes, the script may be a somewhere immature, not actually made by a master of the art of writing.

It leaves a number of things (like character backgrounds) untouched, and instead focusses on the boy and his strange mind, and how the presence of a well-meaning, understanding and caring person benefits him.

The movie tries to capture the atmosphere of a time and a place where education was mostly absent, and where superstition still could reach the minds of people, leading to cruelties.

Set and location are great, some things are weird, for instance, two priests on opposite sides, a farming "Don" with two servants, who does the work of a peasant, but can afford a personal shrink from the U. S. for his son.

Direction is ok.

I understand that the outcome of the story is somewhere unsettling, and also sad, but it is a story that is told with enough love and effort, so that I was entertained and not bored.

Six stars.

This is a poorly acted and predictable story. You've seen this story plenty of times before and could probably guess the ending for yourself quite easily. The acting overall is very wooden, except when the female lead is trying way too hard to emote. Then it is second hand embarrassment for the viewer. The only good performance is from the young actor portraying Martin, Lorenzo Mc Govern Zaini. I was quite impressed with this young man and he definitely has a great future as an actor ahead of him. It's too bad his first high profile film is this turkey. But I'm sure he will find many opportunities to shine.

This movie is about an educated woman and doctor who came to a rural village to help a father and his son, who seemingly have some supernatural powers. Village peasants believe this kid is evil and a seed of Satan. As a scientific-thinking and rationalist woman, she is not only trying to help the boy and his father; she also has to fight the ignorance and bigotry of village peasants. On paper, this story sounds quite decent, but unfortunately, the execution is pretty flat and bad. Some scenes, such as a mother's death in a horse accident, are extremely poorly photographed; the editing is appalling; unrelated scenes blend together without making sense or cohesion; and all characters are one-dimensional and have flat personalities due to the lack of character development in this film. The lead actor's acting is stiff, unconvincing, and really bad. Amber Heard was horribly miscast in her part, and her acting was extremely poor. Eduardo Noriega, who plays the boy's father, is also quite wooden and flat. This movie project really seems to be a low-budget TV movie rather than a high-budget movie made for cinema saloons, and I wonder if Amber Heard really believed that this movie was going to be her comeback vehicle, and if she really believed that, unfortunately, she was really wrong.

On the nose predictable, but bizarre in execution- Within minutes of the Lead showing up, it was clear a modern woman threw on a costume and time-warped into a period piece to demonstrate her gallantry and sexual fortitude, even though she --spoiler-- which pitched the narrative onto the pyre. Not sure what the take-away was supposed to be from this. I had no reason to buy-in, no protagonist (just an activist), and really nothing to admire or despise. This had some potential, and it seemed like some good shots and catchy sound design were present, but it fizzled more than it sizzled and ended up as a flame out for me.

'Into the fire' had an interesing premis, was very visually engaging, and the acting was good. The plot moved a little slowly, but it became more enjoyable as the film went on. I think some aspects of the plot could have been explored a little more effectively within the run time. The 3 main characters were all fairly well developed, though I do feel that they lacked unique character traits, and there were interesting aspects of each character that were never addressed, especially with the doctor. I think more character work would have really improved the film overall, as I sometimes struggled to follow what each character was actually motivated by.