Trial by Fire (TV 2008)

Kristin Scott is wrongfully blamed for the death of her father just prior to his retirement as a Captain with the fire department. Along with being the only female firefighter on her squad,... See full summary »

Director:

John Terlesky

Writer:

Jeff Stephenson

Stars:

Brooke Burns, Rick Ravanello, Winston Rekert

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Brooke Burns	...	Kristin Scott
Rick Ravanello	...	Ray Kulhanek
Winston Rekert	...	Hank
Wanda Cannon	...	Barbara
Erin Karpluk	...	Chelsea
Robert Moloney	...	Dan
William MacDonald	...	Trip Crandall
Aaron Pearl	...	Sean Milligan
Rex Linn	...	Chief Bill Berry
Erika-Shaye Gair	...	Meredith
Michael Adamthwaite	...	Donahue
Nels Lennarson	...	Douglas
Pascale Hutton	...	Taryn
Matthew Kevin Anderson	...	Josh (as Matt Anderson)
Brent Stait	...	Crawford

Storyline

Kristin Scott is wrongfully blamed for the death of her father just prior to his retirement as a Captain with the fire department. Along with being the only female firefighter on her squad, this puts her at odds with the other members of her team and she resigns. To prove herself she tackles the grueling training of smoke jumping. This is a rugged type of firefighter who jumps out of airplanes directly into the flames.

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Plot Keywords:

false accusation

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Genres:

Action | Drama

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG for peril including some disturbing images, language and thematic elements

Details

Official Sites:

Lifetime TV

Country:

Canada

Language:

English

Release Date:

27 September 2008 (USA)

Also Known As:

Raging Inferno

Filming Locations:

Maple Ridge, British Columbia, Canada

Company Credits

Production Co:

Cinetel Films, Insight Film Studios, Deep In Productions

Technical Specs

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Color:

Color Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

User Reviews

A valiant effort but doomed by going to extremes

Predictable plot but not bad: family drama in which two highly competitive sisters take different routes to their parents' attention. One is feminine and soft, the other a lean, mean, fighting machine (literally).

All the family infighting, and the fighter daughter's struggles to earn the respect of her fellow firefighters, rang mostly true if not breaking any new ground, although I did not find that character's physiology or physicality particularly convincing even when she was supposedly staggering along under huge loads during training. Her trainer's romantic overtures were predictable but not overdone.

Where the movie really fell apart was once the wildfire started. Not much passed the common sense smell test even if you know as little about the profession as I do. For our heroine to be the movie's biggest action hero required that a whole lot of characters with far greater expertise do incredibly stupid and unprofessional things to take themselves out of the running.

It might be the fault of the script focusing on triteness or a director addicted to dramatic overkill instead of coaxing the human truths out of the actors, but basically this was a potentially good story that overshot too many marks.