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 t probably goes without saying that "Scorcher",
a direct-to-video production, is a terrible movie. Besides that unavoidable
conclusion, the movie features one of the most irritating Professional Jerks of
all time. A Professional Jerk is a character within a movie (usually action
movies) that serves no purpose other than to antagonize our hero as he goes
about his job (usually to save the world); they're not really villains, since
villains must have a reason to be, while a PJ is only there to irritate
our hero -- and us.
In the case of "Scorcher," the PJ in question is
Kellaway, a FBI special agent played by Mark Rolston, whose single purpose is to
make insensitive remarks to our hero at the most inopportune time and to provide
a pathetic attempt at tension toward the film's climax. (I guess the possible
end of the world wasn't tension enough.) Played with callous disregard for fine
acting, common sense, or even remote plausibility, Rolston's Kellaway is a
mixture of stupidity, arrogance, and loudmouth tendencies. Worst of all, instead
of feeling hate for the character, the audience is more apt to turn their wrath
on screenwriters Rebecca Morrison and Graham Winter for making us endure this
artificial gimmick of a character in the first place.
"Scorcher" stars Mark Dacascos as Col. Ryan
Beckett, a Special Forces soldier designated to lead a team into Los Angeles to
set off a nuclear warhead and save the world. It seems a series of underground
nuke testing by the Chinese have hastened the end of the world via an
"accelerated Greenhouse Effect." With the help of brilliant and spunky
scientist Julie (Tamara Davis), Beckett proceeds on his mission, unaware that
his daughter is lost somewhere in about-to-be-blown-up L.A…
"Scorcher" runs slightly over 90 minutes, but
I'll wager that at least 20 minutes of those are composed of stock footages from
other big budgeted natural disaster movies like "Volcano" and
"Dante's
Peak." If inserting disaster scenes from other movies weren't
enough, "Scorcher" also makes extensive use of the L.A. riots of 1991.
(Then again, who hasn't used those footages? Especially the aerial view
of a burning Downtown L.A.?)
Mark Dacascos, who has not had a decent film role since
"Brotherhood
of the Wolf" and "Crying
Freeman," once again proves that he's more than the material. Dacascos
is charming as the much-too-young Special Forces Colonel, but that doesn't seem
to matter since most people in this film is miscast, with the exception being
the always-endearing John Rhys-Davies (TV's "Sliders") as a scientist
who travels with the team. Tamara Davies has perfect hair and a beautiful face
even through the most dirty and grungy scenes, but she's more believable as
Rhys-Davies' opposing daughter than a scientist. (Of course this doesn't mean
female scientists can't be pretty and have great hair, natch.)
The writing in "Scorcher" is laughable, and the
dialogue is at best tongue-in-cheek and at worst just plain cheesy. Director
James Seale is so preoccupied with dollying the camera into "heroic"
close-ups that he forgets about telling a decent story. There are no believable
plot points in the film, even if I can buy that setting nukes in L.A. might save
the world. Yet, I can't buy that the Pentagon brass would send Beckett and his
team to L.A. on a private jet, only to park on an airport strip somewhere and then
drive all the way to the site in order to set off the nuke, thus risking trouble
along the way. Didn't these brilliant military minds consider that maybe flying
our saviors in a helicopter (or better yet, a gunship helicopter)
straight to the target site might not be a better idea? And save a lot of
time? (But I guess that would make the whole "race against time"
concept obsolete, wouldn't it?)
Also, as a consideration to their man, the Pentagon
promises to get Beckett's daughter out of L.A. immediately. And what is their
"extraction team?" How about two L.A. cops in a squad car! Even
if everyone wasn't trying to get out of L.A. at the same time via a mass
evacuation of 8 million people, you still couldn't drive out of L.A. in normal
traffic. In fact, every single problem that Beckett and his daughter encounters
could have all been avoided with a helicopter ride. What's that you ask,
"Maybe the helicopters are busy?" Apparently not, since two
helicopters appear out of nowhere looking for Beckett and his team because the
Pentagon brass wants to make sure the nukes are okay. Gee, maybe putting the
nukes in the helicopters and flying them to the target site in the first place
might have been a better idea, geniuses!
Then again, if the writers had any common sense at all, and
made their characters act with even a tiny fraction of intelligence,
"Scorcher" would never have gotten off the printed page, so there you
have it.
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