A family living in the woods is faced with doing all they can for survival when a wildfire cuts them off from the road as it closes in on their home. Escape looks unlikely, but they forge forward.
Written by Nick Lyon and Ron Peer and directed by Lyon with Peter Facinelli, this film is based on true events, bringing to light the plight of many people with less resources who end up stuck in fire zones during wildfire seasons in many places around the world. As this is something that is happening more and more and to an increasing number of people each year, this is definitely a film that can be called timely. Of course, things here are dramatized and made to be more entertaining for the sake of the film and the viewers. In terms of the story, it’s pretty much as expected. Yes, there are some twists and turns, but most folks will have guessed the ending, at least its broad strokes, early on. The film being categorized as a drama, mystery, and thriller does lead one to know that it’s not a horror film and thus the ending is pretty safe to guess here. And that is what the film is as a whole, it’s pretty safe. The way it’s written and directed brings in some tension here and there, but guessing the ending early one will lead to there being not much stakes overall. Some folks with lower threshold for tension should find it suspenful and edge-of-your-seat nerve-wracking.
The cast here is one that is interesting in terms of choices made. Playing the lead is co-director Peter Facinelli who does decently well here. Playing his wife is Fiona Dourif who also does quite well (and let’s be honest, she’ll be the main appeal to some folks, including this viewer), playing their son is Asher Angel, and playing the grandpa is Lance Henriksen. Angel does well here and Henriksen is great, making one wish he’d gotten more screen time. The cast is mostly just one family and the folks they come across here and there. The main central focus is clear from the get-go and the casting choices here are interesting with Henriksen giving the best performance of the bunch.
Here is one thing that the film needed to get right, especially as so many people have now lived through wildfire seasons around the world, and that is the fires themselves. To be honest, the opening gives the wrong impression. The fire at the start of the film looks like cheap CGI and it was almost enough to turn off the film completely. Thankfully, things look better as the film gets into its meat and potatoes of the story, giving better looks at what fires can actually look like, including a few scenes where people are driving through fires, something many in Southern California have firsthand experience with. That fire looks scary in the film, and it looks right, leading to most of the fire scenes beyond this looking correct. Let’s be honest here, had the fire throughout the film looked like the fire in the opening, the film itself would have gone from theatrical release (of a film that comes off a bit like a high-end Lifetime Network movie) to a SyFy original. The film’s cinematography works with this well, giving the film that atmosphere that it needs, adding to the story by making it easy to follow and giving it the right mood.
On Fire is a more dramatic take on disaster film that focuses on the human element rather than the destruction. There is of course some destruction, and the fire is a massive part of the story, so it gets a good portion of screentime. The story is a bit predictable beyond the twists and turns here and there, some of which end up not feeling quite right here, but it’s a decently put together story and film.