In what has to be the orangest movie ever made, former NFL defensive end turned Radio Shack pitchman Howie Long has his first — and thankfully only — vehicle as an action hero. He’s Jesse Graves, one of an elite crack team of “smokejumpers,” those specially trained firefighters who parachute into raging blazes in forests and other wildlife sites.
He and Wynt (Scott Glenn, The Right Stuff) find themselves battling sniveling bad guy Shaye (Stone Cold’s William Forsythe, at first looking like Gregg Allman) while flames shoot up all around them. Jesse even finds time to romance a cute redhead (Suzy Amis, Titanic), who’s hauling around two screaming bird fetuses in her fanny pack. Together, they have even less chemistry than Long and Teri Hatcher did in those Radio Shack commercials.
As an action film, Firestorm is as mediocre as it is rote as it is orange. (At least it’s a great-looking orange, being directed by Dean Semler, Oscar-winning cinematographer of Dances with Wolves.) As an action hero, the amiable but insignificant Long is … well, not. In fact, every time he turns toward the camera, you expect to be pitched a cell phone. —Rod Lott