Putting Out House Fires, Reigniting Passions
By NEIL GENZLINGER
“Fireproof” may not be the most profound movie ever made, but it does have its commendable elements, including that rarest of creatures on the big (or small) screen: characters with a strong, conservative Christian faith who don’t sound crazy.
The movie is about a firefighter named Caleb (Kirk Cameron) whose loveless marriage to Catherine (Erin Bethea) is headed for divorce court until Caleb’s father (Harris Malcom) talks him into trying a 40-day caring-for-marriage regimen with a Christian underpinning. “The Love Dare,” it’s called.
The screenwriters, the brothers Alex Kendrick (who also directed) and Stephen Kendrick, give the story some pull by not making Catherine into the usual neglected wallflower of a wife. Instead she’s a publicist at a hospital who spends most of the film contemplating whether to hop into bed with one of the doctors.
For two-thirds of the movie, the filmmakers show a restraint rare in the movie-with-a-Message genre, so much so that the two most appealing characters are those nudging Caleb toward Christianity (Mr. Malcom and Ken Bevel as a fellow firefighter).
The story may be a bit gimmicky — yes, there are dramatic firefighter rescues that have little to do with the main plot — and the central couple is thinly drawn. It’s never clear what attracted these two to each other in the first place, and the hard-edged Catherine’s inevitable coming-around hinges, disappointingly, on some simplistic sensitive-male displays. (He does the dishes!)
But the cast of mostly amateurs (Mr. Cameron of “Growing Pains” being the exception) is surprisingly good. And the moments of comic relief are mildly amusing.
Only at the end do the filmmakers get heavy-handed, and they seem not to know when to wrap up, letting the movie run on for several smarmy scenes beyond its natural endpoint. Until then, though, this is a decent attempt to combine faith and storytelling that will certainly register with its target audience.
And maybe with other folks as well: among those caring-for-marriage tips are some that anyone could use to improve any type of relationship, with or without the God part.