Trial by fire 2008 review

More like this. Watch options. Storyline Edit. This is a rugged type of firefighter who jumps out of airplanes directly into the flames. Rated PG for peril including some disturbing images, language and thematic elements. Add content advisory. User reviews 14 Review. Top review. Far from perfect, but not bad either. Trial By Fire is not a perfect movie, nor does it try to be.

The story may be unrealistic with a fair number of plot holes, the script may have its weak spots, the pace may be lagging and some of the character development may be lacking. Flaws aside, I didn't think it was that bad. The film is shot quite well, the soundtrack and sound give some atmosphere and the stunts are bold and daring. I love the titular character as well, I just love how tough and brave she is, and the acting while not award-worthy is reasonable with Brooke Burns doing a good job in the lead role.

Overall, not great but I didn't think it was that bad either. A true crime story where the truest crime is his conviction. Director Edward Zwick and writer Geoffrey Fletcher movingly craft a biopic about convicted killer Cameron Todd Willingham Jack O'Connell in the late nineties executed for killing his three children in a fire.

While there are multiple instances of the filmmakers morphing incidents to make strong their case against capital punishment in Texas, the impressive facts in the case swayed the jury and the parole board and the public. Yet Elizabeth Gilbert Laura Dern , a Houston playwright, befriends him and finds strong evidence that he may have had a weak defense, local justice withheld proof of innocence, and forensic evidence showing no arson, was all garnered too late.

Although more than half of the film is spent on unnecessary setup, when the biopic gets to Liz unearthing new evidence, it becomes on fire, so to speak. That last half has moments of tension while at the same time following the Hollywood formula of manipulating music, questionable coincidences, and charming convict. Although clearly the filmmakers make the case that his case was bungled, they also make sure to depict Todd as a redneck loudmouth unlikeable by any stretch, until, that is, he has time to educate himself and be contrite.

Dern and O'Connell are convincing in their roles as unlikely friends, with a hint of romance, the film's singular weakness being not connecting them earlier and getting to the evidence gathering sooner.

Did Willingham purposefully set a fire in his Texas home to kill his three young daughters in ? This fictionalized doc does a fairly accurate job of presenting a case that perhaps he didn't. Was there enough for an execution? But, there are a lot of circumstantial suggestions that he could have set the fire. It would have made this doc even more informative if some of the later investigative evidence was added. Coming and going with very little fanfare all the way back in , the based on the true story Trial by Fire is the latest film in the increasingly forgettable later career movements by one time Hollywood heavyweight Edward Zwick, as this death row drama can now be found on streaming giant Netflix in hopes it can find an audience it initially failed to interest.

A director that at one point in time gave us sweeping Hollywood epics such as Glory, Legends of the Fall and The Last Samurai, as well as being a key backer of controversial Oscar winner Shakespeare in Love, Fire is a much smaller scale film than we typically see from Zwick as his adaptation of esteemed writer David Grann's New Yorker article keeps things character driven and mostly solitary as Jack O'Connell's unfortunate death row inmate Cameron Willingham fights to try and clear his name that has been tarnished forever with the supposed arson murder of his three young girls.

A talented performer that has a habit of utilizing his talents in mid-tier affairs, O'Connell is as solid as you'd hope for as the simplistic but seemingly good-hearted Willingham and he carries the film through its more tiresome beats in a full formed performance but we never get any real insight into what made Willingham the man he was and while his story is sympathetic, his not the most charming or likable of characters making our time with him interesting without being overly gripping.

The rest of the films cast don't get a whole lot too do with the second billed Laura Dern coming into the scene around the half way mark with her do-gooder Elizabeth giving Cameron a glimmer of hope as he awaits he execution date and tries to finally get the support he needs to clear his name from a crime he is adamant he never partook in, but her role is thinly drawn, while up and coming actress Emily Meade gets short shift as Cameron's partner Stacy making the surrounding players of Cameron's story one's we don't really attach ourselves too, an element of the film that holds it back from gripping us in any meaningful fashion.

Final Say - Some solid work from its leading man and an intriguing central narrative help Trial by Fire to a reach a middle of the road marker but some bland direction and lack creativity hold this by the numbers affair back from becoming anything of note.

Great directing and cinematography, and a fairly detailed account on the real story of Cameron Todd Willingham, played excellent by Jack O'Connell. Casting was great and all actors were convincing in their roles. Laura Dern was outstanding. The first half of the film was paced perfectly and had great tense moments, but I feel the second half dragged out a little too long with slower pacing and overly extended scenes.

The min runtime should have been edited down minus 20 mins from the second half of the film. Otherwise and outstanding production that had a roller-coaster of emotions and tense moments due to the excellent acting and technical details the filmmakers created. It really makes you think on how terrible the justice system was and still is, and how politics played out during then-Texas governor Rick Perry's poor judgement. This is how the real story played out, so any so-called cliches, sadly are actual facts.

Now go see this excellent biopic! I am surprised that Amazon doesn't have a listing of this yet as a future DVD release, as it usually does for movies currently playing in theaters. As the movie opens, it is "December 23, , Corsicana, TX", as we see a guy just barely escaping a burning house and screaming "my babies are burning! Turns out his three young daughters were still inside the house, and perished. T's not long before the Corsicana police and fire department start looking into the matter, and conclude that the guy started an arson, and before we know it, Todd, refusing to take a plea bargain, is convicted and sentenced to death At this point we are less than 15 min.

Couple of comments: this is the latest movie from producer-director Edward Zwick. Here he takes on the notorious case of the Texas Baby killer. It is a death row drama that is well intended exposing social injustice , but alas is brought with the subtlety of a bull in a china store: "this is capital punishment: if you ain't got no capital, you'll get punished", comments an inmate at some point.

This may well be true, but the movie bashes your head with this message over and over cops: BAD, every single one of them! Texas judicial system: crooked through and through! Laura Dern appears 45 min. Be sure to stick around until the end credits roll, as Zwick includes an actual news clip of then-Texas governor Rick Perry The movie recently opened at my local art-house theater here in Cincinnati.

The Monday Memorial Day early evening screening where I saw this at was attended so-so about 10 people , and I honestly can't see this playing very long in theaters. The story is a real event revealed a tragedy or better call an accident!? The murderer is his father. Many scene I would say is hard to watch.

It's brutal and painful. It just make me connected to another TV drama in Taiwan "the world between us", a theme involved rights of criminal being fairly treated or not. The eccentric Dr. Hurst is played Jeff Perry , a wonderful actor and an original co-founder of Steppenwolf Theatre. In a great stand-alone scene, Hurst takes one look at the evidence in the crime scene photographs and immediately sees that the fire wasn't arson, was, in fact, probably caused by a faulty space heater.

Zwick and Fletcher have added some "flourishes" which don't work at all, particularly the device of having the ghost of one of Willingham's daughters visit him in prison, sitting on his bunk, chatting with him.

This device is familiar from Zwick's work on "thirtysomething," the television series he co-created with Marshall Herskovitz , where straight narrative was interspersed with wild fantasy sequences, launching you into the headspace of the characters.

But here, it's awkward, super-imposed. Equally awkward is Willingham's developing friendship with one of the prison guards, a man initially hostile to him. It's a rage-ball of a film, a furious op-ed column with extant footage of then-governor Rick Perry praising Texas' death penalty laws , but also a conventional melodrama about a woman neglecting her resentful teenage kids the more she gets wrapped up in the case.

Dern's passion is so palpable it makes you wonder why the story wasn't told from her point of view. Only in her face, in all its passionate sincerity, do you feel the literally incendiary nature of the injustice taking place. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here. Rated R for language throughout, some violence, disturbing images, sexual material and brief nudity. Laura Dern as Elizabeth Gilbert. Emily Meade as Stacy Willingham.

A man breaks a window with a crow bar and flames burst out toward him. Several inmates in a shower room fight with punches and kicks and we see bloody faces and one man spits blood on the floor.

A prison guard punches an inmate in the face and abdomen a few times until he passes out we see dried blood and bruises later. A man punches another man below the frame a few times in a bar we do not see injuries after his wife and the other man were apparently flirting.

A woman yells at a man and he tells her to leave and that he has a gun. A man and a woman yell at each other over a telephone in a prison visitation area. An inmate is shown strapped to a gurney as he is executed we see his lower legs as he twitches and seizes. A proposed scenario is shown where a man pours gasoline on the floor in a room and hallway of a house and he flicks a lit cigarette that starts a fire. Several inmates are led down a hallway to a death chamber in several different scenes as other inmates call out to them to "stand tall" and "be strong" and we see a couple of them struggling against the guards and yelling.

A man is taken to prison and other inmates heckle him and call him "baby killer. A husband accuses his wife of demonizing him. A man yells, "I'll die before I say I killed my own kids. A man makes a hand motion gesturing, "I'll kill you.