This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.
Holy Smoke!
Plot Overview
Jack Morrison (Joaquin
Phoenix) grew up Catholic. In his teens he lost his virginity and
quit going to confession. He got a job and paid taxes. In his
twenties he joined the Baltimore City Fire Department, met and
married his wife Linda (Jacinda Barrett,) and started a family.
He's now in his thirties. His boss Captain Mike Kennedy (John
Travolta) commiserates with him for having “lost your best
friend, seen a lot of your buddies hurt, been through a lot of bad
fires. It festers.” Mike is moving on to a fire marshall
position downtown and wants to take Jack with him as his aide.
He tells him to think it over.
My Dad flew P–51 fighters out of England in WW II. When the war was over he married my Mom and quit flying so as not to worry her. Some of his buddies continued to fly private planes. It was a decision to be made. Much the same happened for the earlier war as related by author Bruno Brehm:
“The report indicates, Your Imperial Highness, that the disaster was due entirely to the pilot's foolishness.”Francis Ferdinand strikes the report with the palm of his hand.
“And what causes this dare-devil spirit? It's the result of so much economy at the wrong place. These machines should be used only when they're really needed. Too many officers join the flying force, but not enough money is spent on flying. With a hundredth of the sums wasted in this disorderly State, we could build up an efficient flying corps. When a young officer is finally allowed to fly—and think how rarely he's allowed to get into a machine—he's naturally so excited that he does all kinds of foolish things. Eight people killed! Terrible. Were some of them married men? Did they have children?” (210)
The pros to moving downtown are he'd be making 70¢ more an hour, he'd be home sleeping at night, and his wife would worry less. The cons are he'd be missing the excitement and the adrenaline rush that come from responding to a fire.
Ideology
(Prov.
30:15-16) “The horseleach hath two daughters, crying,
Give, give. There are three things that are never satisfied, yea,
four things say not, It is enough: The grave; and the barren womb;
the earth that is not filled with water; and the fire that saith
not, It is enough.” There are two kinds of definitively
dependent folk (“crying, Give, give”): the very
young—out from the womb, and they keep coming—and the
very old—heading for the grave, and they keep leaving.
When the ancient worldwide flood
drained away, the earth was able to establish a productive ecology.
As authoress Donna Howell with Dr. Thomas Horn puts it (from Job 38:8, Job 38:26-27):
Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb? [Shutting the “doors” to the sea denotes God's majestic ability to limit Earth's waters so the planet will not fall prey to perpetual flooding. “When it brake forth” is considered by many to refer to a time Earth was flooded, and of course, most assume this to be Noah's Flood. To Gap theorists, this entire speech is a reference to an epoch more ancient than Noah; it glances back to the “deep” of Genesis 1:2.] To cause it to rain on the earth, where no man is; on the wilderness, wherein there is no man; To satisfy the desolate and waste ground; and to cause the bud of the tender herb to spring forth? (113)
It's as in a line from
Wassermann: “fruitful, as it has always been since time
immemorial; the corn ripens, the potatoes thrive, the poppy blooms
and the root-crops grow rich and succulent” (7). There's
explosive grain dust in a burning warehouse. When a couple of
the firemen go grocery shopping for the station, we see that
the supermarket shelves are jam-packed with food, the produce
section is overflowing, and they can't even find the ketchup
in all the clutter.
“The fire that saith not, It is enough” refers to
human metabolism that runs all of one's life and must be fed. In
this movie it is illustrated by five-year-old Katie Morrison
(Brooke Hamlin) blowing out her birthday candles, one for each
year in which her metabolism was burning, and now she'll be working
on her sixth. We saw her older brother Nicky (Spencer Berglund)
baptized as an infant, and then he was nursing. His mom had the
munchies waiting for him to get born. At the party somebody is
barbecuing hot dogs. Newlyweds feed each other wedding
cake. The men plan a fishing trip. The Morrison family eat a
balanced diet. The lasagna that the girls picked up at the market
was said to be more appropriate for old lonely women. Mike's trophy
wall shows his dad's posthumous award for valor; he died with
his boots on. Mike's fireman grandfather, though, lived
out his days, receiving whatever care he needed at the end.
Production Values
“” (2004) was directed by Jay Russell. It was written by Lewis Colick. It stars Joaquin Phoenix, John Travolta and Jacinda Barrett. Also featured are: Robert Patrick, Billy Burke, Balthazar Getty, Morris Chestnut and Kevin Chapman. Phoenix and Travolta were outstanding. The rest of cast were great, as well.
MPA rated it PG–13 for intense fire and rescue situations, and for language. It had some realistic fire fighting and remarkable stunt work. Both the officialdom of their occupation and the rituals of their religion contributed to the grandeur of gatherings marking various transitions. The firehouse camaraderie was more in the forefront than family life. Runtime is 1 hour 55 minutes.
Review Conclusion w/a Christian's Recommendation
Jack's wife notably embodied the traditional role of women to follow along with and adapt to her husband's career (“I'm proud of you, baby.”) She didn't step in to make his tough decision for him but bucked up under the pressure (“I deal with it”) asking him, “What do you want to do?”
This was a very engaging movie having lots of scary action, rewards for selfless service, good male bonding, and manly heroes. It'll keep you glued to the screen.
Movie Ratings
Action factor: Edge of your seat action-packed. Suitability for Children: Suitable for children 13+ years with guidance. Special effects: Well done special effects. Video Occasion: Much better than watching TV. Suspense: Keeps you on the edge of your seat. Overall movie rating: Four stars out of five.
Works Cited
Scripture is quoted from the King James Version. Pub. 1611, rev. 1769. Software, print.
Brehm, Bruno. They Call It Patriotism. Translated from the German of Apis Und Este. Copyright, 1932 by Little, Brown and Co. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1932. Print.
Howell, Donna and Dr. Thomas Horn. Before Genesis. © 2023 Defender Publishing. Crane, MO: Defender Pub., 2023. Print.
Wassermann, Jacob. The Dark Pilgrimage, Originally published in Germany under the title Die Juden Von Zirndorf (The Jews of Zirndorf). New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation, 1933. Print.
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