"Fire in the Sky"


Night. Snowflake, Arizona. A truck careens through a field and 
onto the road, causing an oncoming semi to swerve and land in 
a ditch. More crazy driving. If you look close enough, you can 
see silhouettes inside the truck. 

The truck finally stops at a restaurant and five guys - 
hereinafter referred to as the "Redneck Crew" - climb out. They 
walk into the restaurant, looking for all intents and purposes 
like zombies. 

Inside the restaurant, Mike Rogers (Robert Patrick) says 
something about "stickin' to the story" and picks up a pay 
phone to call the police. 

Enter Lt. Frank Watters (James Garner). We first see him 
driving down a dark road in the middle of nowhere. A row of red 
lights is reflected in his windshield - moving from top to 
bottom - and he stares at it for a moment with his mouth 
hanging open. It turns out to be a railroad crossing arm. Cute.

Watters meets the town sheriff, who fills him in on a few 
details. Missing person report, names of the Redneck crew, et 
cetera, et cetera. But he doesn't tell him what, supposedly, 
happened to the missing person. "I think you should hear this 
from the horses mouth," he says. "Well, lead me to the horse," 
Watters replies. Giggle.

Background information: The missing person - Travis Walton 
(DB Sweeny) - was Mike Rogers' best friend and also happened to 
be dating his little sister Dana. Other members of the crew 
include Greg Hays, Robert "Bobby" Cogdale, David "Preacher" 
Widlock, and Allen "Psycho" Dallas. These guys '[have] a 
government contract to clear out the brush', whatever that 
means. 

Watters begins questioning Rogers, the group leader. Mike 
shakily tells Watters the whole story. We see - in flashback - 
scenes that establish Travis' relationship with various members 
of the Redneck Crew, including Travis telling Mike about his 
brilliant plan that involves them starting a motorcycle (or 
maybe it was a car) company called "MT Motors". Because they're 
so good that they can't even keep the showroom floor full. Get 
it? It's almost always "MT"? Yeah, I know...lame.

These flashbacks also include a little "conversation" between 
Travis and Dallas in the woods - which the rest of the crew 
happens to see - wherein Dallas threatens Travis with a 
chainsaw. He defends himself by saying that he was 'just having 
some fun'. Yeah, so was Lizzie Borden. 

Anyway, on the way back one night they see a strange light in 
the woods just before the radio begins to go bonkers. Travis 
insists that Mike pull over because he wants to "see what it 
is". And if you've watched enough horror movies, you know that 
no good can come from that statement...

As the rest of the Redneck Crew watch, Travis is zapped by a 
beam of light and thrown several feet through the air. The 
truck speeds away with several occupants screaming and most 
likely in need of a new pair of underwear. But Mike's 
conscience will not let him leave his friend, so he leaves the 
rest of the crew by the side of the road while he goes back, 
but he doesn't find anything.

Lt. Watters: "You expect me to believe...that a flying saucer 
came down and took your friend and carried him to outer 
space..." Wow...nice work there, detective! (That was sarcasm 
by the way) "There was something out there," Mike insists. And 
somewhere, Agent Fox Mulder is saying "No shit buddy, I've been 
saying that for years!"

And of course, we are treated here to the obligatory "media 
circus/people getting frantic and jumping to conclusions" 
scenes common to most alien invasion movies. Of course, in this 
case the conclusions being jumped at are mostly "these people 
are lying cold-blooded murderers and stop talking about aliens 
because you're scaring the children!"

Lt. Watters finally removes the stick from his ass and admits 
to the Redneck crew that he is beginning to have a change of 
heart. "I'm starting to think that maybe you didn't kill your 
friend. But for the life of me I can't figure out why you're 
trying to cover it up." Question: cover what up?

Finally, Travis is returned - five days later, relatively 
intact. Well, physically anyway. Now, through flashback, we see 
what Travis went through for those five days. I had just eaten 
the first time I saw this part and I was afraid I would throw 
up. It is interesting though, in that it is a very different 
look at aliens than is the norm.

There's not much else to say about this movie I guess. It is a 
good movie, partly because it chooses to focus not on high-
budget special effects scenes to create an other worldly 
environment - along with the aliens who inhabit it - but on the 
humans whose lives are changed by an unexplainable experience. 
:::pause::: Okay, so I'm a parapsychology nut. 

I'll end this review with what I considered to be the best part 
of the movie. It's a conversation between Lt. Watters and the 
Sheriff that came towards the end of the movie. Actually, I 
didn't expect anything to come after this scene, even though 
something did. I think it wrapped the whole story up nicely. 
 
"First unsolved case, Frank?"    

"Oh, I wouldn't say that exactly, Sheriff. Just waitin' for the 
real truth to come out."

"Well, that doctor seemed to think it was real."

"She's forgetting the fact that Travis had five days to dream 
up and rehearse this cacamamy (sp?) story of his."

"What are you gettin' at, Frank?"

"It just seems to me that this whole thing is a very well 
planned and executed hoax."

"Hoax?! For God's sake, why would they wanna do that?"

"To get some attention. Could be as simple as that."

"Oh, I don't know, Frank. I mean--"

"Yeah, well, one of these days they're gonna slip up. And when 
they do I'm on my way back to Snowflake."

"All the way from Montana?"

"From the friggin' North Pole if I have to. I'll see you then, 
Sheriff."

~Diandra Hollman