Ablaze

Ablaze

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DVD Reviews of Ablaze

DVD Review: A B-Budget version of "Backdraft" & "City On Fire."
Summary: 4 Stars

The film itself begins with a really pointless car chase of a mad bomber(?) who ends up being shot by one of the main characters (the captain of a fire department) who is on a stakeout with Jay Andrew's good B-Movie friend, Ice-T, whom, for some odd reason always seems to pop up in one of Andrew's films, why? I havn't a clue. Anyway, the bad guy catches fire (he does not spontaneously combust like some believe, the poeple that catch fire actually do have reasons why) and he burns to death in a park.

Then we go into learning about the characters, like Tom Arnold, who plays the greedy oil/gas refinery owner who is illegaly dumping(?) gasoline into the sewer system of what appears to be Los Angeles (though we actually never do know the city's true name, but the opening shot is one of downtown LA). Arnold's character has also built a hospital at the end of a cultasac and it is understaffed, under budgeted, and run by a truely evil woman, but one doctor is determined to do what's to help a low-income woman have her baby, and later on save the lives of everyone in the hospital. The fire captain has a brother whom he dislikes (for a certain reason) and the brother is an undercover agent seeking to find out the truth behind Wendel Mays' (Arnold's character) bribery and corruption.

Mays' refinery then dumps a large load of gasoline into the sewer system of the city and then the refinery catches fire from a welder's torch and catches everything on fire. The Mays Hospital is the only one near to take burn victims but gets cut off by a firestorm that theatens to blow up the whole city block (which looks like a street in New York City). The same traffic shots w/ fire in the far off distance is used over and over to show that the city is, well...ablaze! As well as a cheap special fx shot of a skyscraper exploding due to the whole sewer system catching fire. So now the city is in "flames" and the hospital must evactuate everyone down a burning street, where many meet their ends.

This film is pretty merciless in killing off its characters (just like in the great 1970's Irwin Allen films), even the nice Cathy Lee Crosby who is a kind and sweet television actress (combining the "Bewitched" and "I Dream of Genie" stars together, for this film) and she tries to make a run for it (whether to be the guinea pig to test it out, or because she just wants to save herself) and she catches fire and burns to death. Then falling debris kills some people and some stupid nurse opens a closet that has fire on the other side and the backdraft that unsues torches the poor girl, tisk, tisk, tisk, didn't she watch "The Towering Inferno" or "Backdraft"?

The movie was made with obvious stock footage from the 1970's, which I actually enjoy! Especially since "City On Fire" is an extremely hard to find film. "City On Fire" is a Leslie Neilson and Ava Gardner 1979 disaster film where a disgruntled oil refinery (or chemical plant) employee purposely catches the city on fire and a threatened hospital must evacuate its occupants, hey that sounds kinda familiar... Anyway, this film was pretty decent and much better than Andrew's previous fiascos like "Final Voyage" and... uh...you know that one with Ice-T in it.