Wildfire (1988) User Reviews (3)

Not a dreamy love story. *SPOILERS*

[vertigo_14 · 31 January 2004]

The problem with Wildfire, is that I don't know what it is supposed to be. It starts out as a sentimental love story between two orphaned children turned married teenagers(?) Poor and pregnant, Frank (Bauer) and Kate (Florentino) decide to hold up a bank. Actually, it was Frank's brilliant idea, and it's what gets him a prison term.

Meanwhile, Kate who may or may have not been a teenager, is sent to live with a foster family, where she lives for some eight years. There, she meets Mike (Patton), who eventually becomes her husband.

Ol' Mike and Frank both exhibit that wierd Lifetime Television wife beater vibe. Mike the obsessive gets out of jail and wants to reunite with his wife. But not in that psychotic "if i can't have you, nobody can" kind of way. He just thinks he can pick up where he left off and that Kate will go along with it.

She does kind of linger with him for awhile, and this obviously angers her husband, Mike. As Kate travels from upstate California to San Diego to eventually Mexico (at which point she wishes Frank would just let go and let her be), Mike follows them and even hires a bounty hunter to help look for the pair. In the search for his wife, the movie starts to become something of an action film -- fast cars, fist fights, the works.

Except at this point, nearing the end of the film, we are not told what happens to the bounty hunter. So, the action aspect of the film is left undiscovered, or is to be assumed over. Because now in Mexico, this is Kate's last opportunity to convince Frank to let go. And Frank will only do that in death. So you get the picture, right?

It's a strange movie that picks up towards the middle, once you figure out what the real relationship is between Kate and Frank or Kate and Mike. She's a very unresponsive character for the most part of the film, and is really just reactionary towards the male characters. Plus, when you're trying to figure out what's going on with Kate, she spends half the time crying. That's why it's kind of hard to figure out. I'm not fond of movies where actors don't get much dialogue or don't really reveal (at least not on purpose) what their character is all about.

Get outa town. My husband knows.

[mark.waltz · 2/10 · 20 August 2022]

Trashy low budget thriller about ex-con Steve Bauer going back to see his ex, Linda Fiorentino, getting out of prison for attempting a convenience store robbery. We're supposed to care about these people because we saw them meeting as an orphanage when they were kids, and the fact that she's pregnant with his kid when he's sent to prison, but there's nothing about them remotely interesting let alone spending 90 minutes caring about their story. These characters are so poorly formulated that you can't believe the actors could ever find a realistic way to play them.

Will Patton plays Fiorentino's husband, angry when she tells him that Bauer is back in her life, and next thing you know she's left him to go find her real mother when Bauer tells her that he's located her for her. An ugly bunch of people in a badly written story that after a while isn't even fun to watch as trashy exploration. Mama's a trashy bar hostess wearing a skirt the size of a dish rag to serve customers. This is the type of film you need a shower to watch afterwards to get the filth off of. Maybe if they chose to create an actual plot rather than show these soulless people making mistake after mistake.

Quite frankly, a gem of a film

[thesiouxfallskid · 9/10 · 25 February 2012]

For me this film turned out to be a very good example where one may do well not to rely on what people say about the film itself, about the director, or of his other films. As of my review the film is rated 3.7 and looking at the breakdown no idea on how that was arrived at. More 10s than any other single rating. A happily married woman with small children finds her life upended when her love from the past drops by to see her. Excellent story, well acted, credible. Cast well chosen. Not a film where you know what is coming next. This is a very early Zalman King film and if you are looking for erotica you won't find any here. Very nicely done.