I found this movie to be dreadful rubbish. I was sorely tempted to quit watching at around the fifty minute mark but as I'd decided to leave a review, I felt it was only fair to experience the whole rotten thing.
I don't mind movies made for television, especially if they're based on fact, low budgets don't always equal "clunker" but this was one of those failures and I wondered who it was aimed at, as those most interested, appear to be locals to Oakland, who experienced the horrors of this fire. Well, the vast majority of us don't live anywhere near, and one brush fire is going to look much like any other.
The main characters...a wannabe earth mother, her son, his snarky girlfriend, the fire chief who's the new kid in town, and a few more thrown in to make up the numbers are annoying, totally two-dimensional and instantly forgettable. The acting was very very poor.
The lack of interest in the characters (and their fates) leaves the fire fighting scenes and those soon become tedious, even though this is genuine footage. This viewer assumed, correctly, that the fire would prove devestating, otherwise a movie about it would've been unwarranted, I just didn't expect such awful acting.
Fire is hell, so is war, looking at the damage it leaves is all very well, but if the viewer has zero connection, even a documentary has less meaning to outsiders, so that leaves very little entertainment value for the average watcher of this tv movie, hence my vote of the one star this website insists upon.
I don't mind movies made for television, especially if they're based on fact, low budgets don't always equal "clunker" but this was one of those failures and I wondered who it was aimed at, as those most interested, appear to be locals to Oakland, who experienced the horrors of this fire. Well, the vast majority of us don't live anywhere near, and one brush fire is going to look much like any other.
The main characters...a wannabe earth mother, her son, his snarky girlfriend, the fire chief who's the new kid in town, and a few more thrown in to make up the numbers are annoying, totally two-dimensional and instantly forgettable. The acting was very very poor.
The lack of interest in the characters (and their fates) leaves the fire fighting scenes and those soon become tedious, even though this is genuine footage. This viewer assumed, correctly, that the fire would prove devestating, otherwise a movie about it would've been unwarranted, I just didn't expect such awful acting.
Fire is hell, so is war, looking at the damage it leaves is all very well, but if the viewer has zero connection, even a documentary has less meaning to outsiders, so that leaves very little entertainment value for the average watcher of this tv movie, hence my vote of the one star this website insists upon.