Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 13, 1993 TAG: 9303130256
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: C-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHRIS GLADDEN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
`FIRE IN SKY' INTRIGUING BUT UNFOCUSED
"Fire in the Sky" is something of an oddity, a movie about a UFO kidnapping that doesn't want to be exploitative. While that is commendable, it doesn't necessarily overcome a lot of problems - mainly in the story line here.The movie comes with a tag that says it's based on a true story. The time is the 1970s, the location is Arizona, and the movie begins with some white-knuckle action as a truck comes crashing out of a forest. The passengers are a bunch of forest workers who are scared out of their wits. They tell police that they stumbled on a mysterious light and their truck lost its power. The light, they claim, came from a huge flying saucer. And one of their crew - Travis Walton - foolishly left the truck and was struck down by a bolt of light. The others fled, but when one returned Walton was gone.
The first half of the movie proposes an intriguing scenario. What if you did become involved in something outside of our accepted range of experiences and nobody believed you? The men are suspected of murder, and their friends in town turn against them. Hurt the worst is Mike, well-played by Robert Patrick. He's Mike's best friend and has to bear the guilty burden of deserting his buddy as well as the suspicion of murder.
James Garner plays a skeptical investigator who is brought in, and his performance seems to carry that skepticism into his own judgment when it came to accepting the part. He seems mightily uncomfortable here.
D.B. Sweeney plays Travis, the high-spirited missing person. Henry Thomas, E.T.'s pal, is mostly on hand as a forest worker to provide the movie a kind of inside movie joke. However, these aliens are no E.T.s. The script leaves the purpose of the kidnapping largely up in the air: We're no doubt to assume it was done as part of a scientific mission.
Director Robert Lieberman and screenplay writer Tracy Torme go in several different directions, and the result is a surprisingly earnest movie without a satisfying dramatic arc.
Fire in the Sky: **
A Paramount picture at Salem Valley 8 (389-0444) and Valley View Mall 6 (362-8219). Rated PG-13 for language and scenes involving aliens that may frighten younger children; 110 min.