Firetrap (2001)
Master burglar Max Hopper is released early after three years and soon gets an exceptional job: stealing an advanced computer-chip from the IQ Industries headquarters. His first attempt fails; when he enters in cop uniform during an emergency board meeting, a fire quickly spreads- he considers it a godsend opportunity and stays, but soon has his hands too full saving other lives and just surviving to concentrate on the chip; only the owner, his wife who just filed for divorce and a few employees remain, but it soon turns out one of them stole company secrets but the arsonist and/or another chip-thieves are among them.
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Stylish but barely mediocre overall
Captivating movie !
Better Late Then Never
The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.
My hopes were raised significantly for "Firetrap" when the PM Entertainment logo came up, because PM Entertainment made some really good made-for-video action flicks. Sadly, several seconds later, my hopes were dashed when the names of Richard Pepin and Joseph Merhi (the honchos of PM Entertainment) were not listed in the credits. They were the driving force behind those great action flicks, and without them, what we have here is an extremely mediocre movie at its best, and a painfully predictable and flat movie at its worst. You'll be saying, "I've seen this before" throughout, even if you can't remember where you've seen it before. Dean Cain makes for a one-note hero, and none of the other performances are memorable as well. I guess some of the fire effects aren't bad for a low budget movie, but you can't make a good movie simply with good special effects. If it's raining outside and this is playing on TV, you'd be more entertained going outside and being soaked.
Dean Cain, the one time Super-Man, plays Max Hooper the super-thief. He can break into any company and steal any thing for the right price. Unfortunately his latest heist ends him up in a high-rise in which someone else has set a fire to hide their own attempts to steal the product. Now the thief finds himself having to be the hero rescuing everyone in the building. Unfortunately the other thief is still in the building and the F.B.I. & C.I.A. are outside waiting for Max.The movie is barely passable. Dean Cain is a fun actor and has done much better with more improved material but here he is saddled with a weak script and pretty poor direction.
I saw this film, in hopes that the jacket would provide an adequate premonition of what it had promised. And unfortunately, it did not. Dean Cain did his best with the writing, although I must say the acting was horrific. One liners were almost laughable at times. The fire scenes were impressive, however implausible when trying to convey the situation in technical terms to the average layman. No sprinklers went on during a building explosion?!?! Get real! Overall, not a good movie, and somewhat of an major editing faux-pas at the end in the credits. Dean Cain's character was Max Hooper, not a character named "Jack." I thought editing the final product was crucial for a consummate delivery.
I thought this was a pretty good movie, even with some obvious plot holes (if the alarm system worked when someone pulled a wall station, why didn't the smoke detectors work? Why didn't the system signal a loss of water pressure, if someone shut the water off? What happened to the sprinklers?) The fire scenes were some of the best I've seen (even though accellerant trails were visible in a few scenes). There were also some mistakes in basic firefighting (no one sprays water from the street at a fire on the sixth floor - that is what aerial ladder pipes are for!) I did like the plot, and I thought Dean Cain was great as Max Hopper. This would make a good series.