Firestarter Mark Lester's 1984 adaptation of Stephen King's Firestarter opens with an engaging father-and-daughter-on-the-lam scenario. Andy McGee (David Keith) and his eight-year-old daughter Charlie (Drew Barrymore) furiously make their way along a crowded city sidewalk, fleeing from benevolent suits in government issue cars. As the audience quickly learns through expositional flashbacks, Andy once participated in a seemingly-innocuous scientific experiment back in college, whereby he and ten others allowed themselves to be injected with an experimental chemical called Lot 6. But his modest stipend bought him much more than he bargained for. His marriage to fellow participant Vickie (Heather Locklear) produced Charlie, a daughter with pyrokinesis, or the ability to ignite fires at will. Andy's reaction to the chemical, meanwhile, has endowed him with the "push," or the ability to affect people's actions by the power of suggestion. We get a good idea of what he's capable of when he catches some government agents, who've murdered Vickie and are trying to kidnap the daughter, by staring them down and proclaiming to them each, "You're blind." The agents both fall to the ground, flailing in spontaneous blindness. Andy's a better man than I; if some government assholes had just murdered my wife, I'd have put the "push" on them and said something along the lines of, "Your heart will stop beating shortly, but not before you feel the sensation of an acute genital rash, compounded with a mouthful of cold sores, severe corns on your feet, plus a half-dozen misaligned vertebrae to go along with your leprosy. And you voted for Clinton, twice." I play hardball; Andy McGee merely blinds. While Andy and Charlie continue on, eventually meeting up with nice farmer Irv Manders (Art Carney) while hitch-hiking, some devious plans are being hatched at The Shop. This is the secret governmental department who are pursuing the McGee's, hoping to harvest Charlie's abilities. They're also the ones who spearheaded the whole Lot 6 experiment in the first place. Come to think of it, The Shop gets mentioned in a few other King novels as well; gotta love inter-novel overlap. Dr. Wallace (Freddie Jones, fidgety as ever), who was in charge of that project, insists to department head Captain Hollister (Martin Sheen, smarmy as ever) that when found, the McGee's must be shot on sight because of the potential threat Charlie's abilities have towards mankind. Shop operative John Rainbird (George C. Scott), meanwhile, has other plans for the the little firebug. The true nature of Charlie's talents become apparent when the Shop tracks the two fugitives to the Manders home, where Irv and his wife Norma (Louise Fletcher) have welcomed them as houseguests. Andy has meanwhile briefed Irv of their predicament in an awkwardly-written scene that makes Irv come off as a gullible buffoon, since he seems to believe Andy's wild tale upon first listen. But when the bad guys bear down, Charlie lets loose in a blaze of pyrokinetic frenzy upon some inept Shop agents, who are clearly overstepping legal bounds by attempting to retrieve the two from private property and without a warrant. When the smoke clears and the unburned agents have fled, Irv and Norma give the McGee's a vehicle in which to flee. The narrow escape is short-lived, though, as The Shop tracks their prey to a lakeside cottage previously owned by Charlie's now-deceased grandfather. Rainbird himself takes out the McGee's with well-fired tranquilizer darts and spirits them back to The Shop's main compound, where the father and daughter are separated and later subjected to experimentation, much against their will. There's a needlessly humorous segment in which Hollister and researcher Dr. Pinchot (Moses Gunn) attempt to win the pouting Charlie's favor with some lame stuffed animals. During this period, Rainbird poses as a janitor and eventually wins the trust of Charlie, who is unaware that he's the one who shot them and brought them to the compound. Andy, in another part of the building, fakes having lost his "push" ability, so that he can spring it on some unsuspecting folks later on. The stage is set for a literally fiery showdown between (essentially) innocent by-standers and a malevolent and illegal abuse of covert governmental power. As a King adaptation, this one's right on target. Stanley Mann's screenplay takes no obnoxious liberties with the source material, and Lester's direction is top-notch as always. And face it, nothing says "80's genre flick" like a Tangerine Dream score, especially with a delicious opening title theme set in F-minor. Performance-wise, David Keith makes a believable protective dad figure, and then-child-star Drew Barrymore was a perfect choice as Charlie; she was even able to shed her schmaltzy "Gertie" persona from 1982's E.T. by setting several well-deserving folks on fire and even telling one character, "Go to hell!" Yikes! This was ten years before Macauley Culkin was required to utter the dismissable "Don't fuck with me" line in The Good Son; little cussing kids just don't have as much impact these days. Carney is likable and authentic as neo-redneck Manders, and Freddie Jones has an unintentionally hilarious faux-Loomis scene in which he rants on about how Charlie must be destroyed before her abilities enable her to create a nuclear explosion at will, or even snap the planet in two like a plate; call it Pleasence Lite, I guess. On an unrelated note, Firestarter was produced by none other than Frank Capra, Jr. Go figure! >>Back<< >>Archive Index<<