Playing with Fire is possibly the most immature film I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen all five Twilights, the My Little Pony movie, the entire compendium of Pauly Shore, and Rock ‘N’ Roll High School a dozen times. But this examination of forest fire fighters [read: smokejumpers] “adopting” three sub-adults makes Vin Diesel’s similarly themed The Pacifier look like Schindler’s List. Playing with Fire never missed a chance to miss the point with an awkward punchline. They say slapstick is dead. Oh God, I wish it were.
Somewhere in the middle of the forest, a fire rages. The smokejumpers, a rare breed of mega-danger drawn firefighters, are sent to quell the blaze with no-nonsense heroics. Among the film’s greater faults is that the acting is exceptionally poor. Take, for instance, the fact that nobody in the middle of a fire ever looks like they’re in the middle of a fire. The smokejumpers compensate by being extra serious about their job; in turn, their completely humorless evaluation of their own skill set comes off as wartime soldiering. It would work a great deal better were the leads not John Cena, Keegan-Michael Key, and John Leguizamo.
After a hard day of B-roll, the smokejumper team comes back to the station for some G-rated self-congratulatory behavior. And half the team immediately leaves for pretty much no reason. Their absence is filled by three rescued minors: Brynn (Brianna Hildebrand), Will (Christian Convery), and Zoey (Finley Rose Slater). Brynn’s passive-aggressive hostility towards her rescuers is both perplexing and off-putting. Playing with Fire wanted to portray her as a rebellious teen, but forgot the part where even rebellious teens appreciate that they’re alive. This brings me to major complaint #2: There is not one single believable scene in the entire film.
So you see where this is going, right? Bunch of humorless he-men have to babysit a trio of would-be orphans until their parents arrive. The children aren’t equipped for the station and the station isn’t equipped for the children. Each group feels put-upon by the other. And despite the fact that there’s only five rooms in the station and the remaining men pride themselves on being alert and prepared, they seem to have no defense for a peanut butter stained six-year-old.
Yet nothing on this Earth can prepare you for the overacting generated by the “boom boom” scene. “John, Keenan, sell it! SELL IT!! Let the audience know that the content’s of Zoey’s diaper are somehow more repellent than anything you’ve seen in your lives … oh, and all your adult training to suppress emotion? Forget all that. Let everyone you’ve ever met know that this task represents your toughest challenge in life. The fact that you dive into raging wildfires for a living? HAH! This dooky is your nemesis.”
Calling Playing with Fire immature undersells immaturity. If I arrived at the theater with a five year-old-boy who spent the car ride making fart noises, I would still be embarrassed if the kid laughed during Playing with Fire. I don’t call the film “bad” or “evil,” but for a film partially interested in making us understand the profession of smokejumper, it makes these rare heroes look like helpless ninnies all for the sake of toddler humor. Every single person in this film has been put on notice: y’all have to earn my trust beyond this point.
Rescuing from above is lost art
“Survival for one, please, a la carte”
Heroics align
With skills divine
Poop poop fart fart poop poop fart
Rated PG, 96 Minutes
Director: Andy Fickman
Writer: Dan Ewen, Matt Lieberman
Genre: Poop jokes
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Your very immature 3-year-old
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: People with no tolerance for poop jokes
