Movie Review: Fireproof (2008) by Stuart Taylor

I am a strong atheist, so I thought it would be interesting to watch one of Kirk Cameron’s movies. Kirk is a born-again Christian, probably best known for being Ray Comfort’s sidekick in hilarious evangelical videos such as, The Banana: An Atheist’s Nightmare. Nowadays Kirk’s acting ventures are limited to stories spreading the good Christian message, so I thought it was about time we sat down with a big bag of popcorn and sat down with Fireproof.

We open with a prologue, 25 years ago. We hear a mother tucking her daughter in. The daughter wants to marry Daddy, but Mummy tells her she can’t because ‘he’s my husband.’ Mummy assures the little girl that she can be as happy as Mummy and Daddy if she marries someone really special… ‘like Daddy’. Now, I thought this scene was freaking creepy the first time, but it’s extra creepy now I realise that it’s never referenced again for the rest of the film.

Marriage

Flashing forward to the present day, we’re introduced to our players. Kirk Cameron is a chief in the fire department, we see him chastising a fire fighter for putting his partner in danger: ‘You always stay with your partner!’. His wife, Kat, is a manager (or something) at the local hospital – she trips over a doctor called Gavin who looks at her longingly. The black nurses gather to gossip: ‘Doctor got a thang for Kat!’ ‘Mmmm-hmmm!’ We also learn that Kat’s mother suffered a stroke a while back and is now quite badly disabled to the point of beign unable to speak or move around easily. Unfortunately, Kirk and Kat’s marriage is not as awesome as it could be: Kirk is angry that Kat never makes him dinner (their shift patterns mean they often eat at different times), while Kat is angry that Kirk never does anything around the house (Kirk is too busy saving lives god gosh damn darn it!). Kat is especially angry that Kirk seems to spend all his free time looking at internet porn and has spent years saving for a boat instead of fixing up the house. A very angry Kirk shouts in her face: “You selfish woman!” (no swearing in this film). They both angrily agree to divorce.

Kirk talks to the lieutenant at the fire station about his problems. The Lieutenant is a black man, but you could tell this even if you were blind because, though the cast is exceptionally diverse, all the black characters are so stereotypically black that you expect Tom and Jerry to start running underfoot at any moment. Anyhow, the Lieutenant has some great African American advice: ‘a woma  is like a rose: you treat her right; she bloom.’ The Lieutenant is a religious man – after a dangerous caper, one of the fire fighters asks is he’s afraid of dying, to which he responds: ‘No, cause I know where I’m going.’

Symbolism

Contrarily, Kirk is particularly agnostic, much to the chagrin of his father. Kirk’s parents went through a rough patch recently, only to come out of their difficulties stronger and ever more in love. He claims that the Lord did great work for their marriage, but Kirk’s not interested in hearing about God. Despite Kirk’s repeated shunning of his evangelising, his father tells him not to sign the divorce papers for 40 days; he’s going to send Kirk something in the mail that will save his marriage! It’s like 40 Days 40 Nights except that our protagonist must resist getting a divorce instead of a wank!

The rest of the film is about the 40 days that Kirk has to work through ‘The Love Dare’. See, his dad sends him a journal: on each dayy he has written some relationship advice, a relevant bible verse and a dare that Kirk must do. He promises that if he follows the advice and the dare for each day, then after 40 days he will be able to save their marriage. It’s strange because neither Kirk nor Kat seem that bothered about staying together, so I don’t know why Kirk  has any interest in this project. It’d be like someone saying to me, ‘look I know you don’t want to cut your hands off, but do this 40 day challenge and I promise you that, by the end, you’ll definitely want to cut your hands off,’ No. Just, no.

The challenges start off pretty simply: Day 1 – ‘say nothing negative to your wife’; Day 2 – ‘do one unexpected kind gesture’; Day 3 – ‘buy her something nice, etc. Kat is getting weirded out by his behaviour and her nurse friends suspect he’s playing silly-buggers to try and get her to be generous in the divorce settlement. Not only is Kat utterly uninterested in Kirk’s gestures, but she’s started spending more time with Doctor Gavin. This is not going to be easy for Kirk! Luckily, the Lieutenant is on hand to offer him some sage relationship advice: ‘Salt and pepper are different… but you always see them together.’ He then actually superglues plastic salt and pepper shakers to each other as if the analogy wouldn’t have worked in words alone. I’d hate to see him use the phrase ‘flogging a dead horse’. Anyhow, the analogy takes on new depths when Kirk tries to pull the shakers apart; Lieutenant warns, ‘if you pull them apart now, you’ll break both of them.’ Guys, this is an analogy for the covenant of marriage. Do you see?

Anyhow, Kirk continues through the tasks, doing the bare minimum possible to check them off his list. The tasks themselves are actually a bit creepy and emotionally confusing. He leaves her flowers and chocolates; he phones her at work to ask if she needs anything; he makes her a romantic candlelit dinner. If I were going through a divorce and my partner did this for me I’d be confused and upset but this conflicting action. Kat gets furious at him, and rightly so.

Kirk's father is trying to tell him something... but what?

At the half way point, Kirk is ready to give up. His dad tried to console him, telling him that the midpoint of The Love Dare was the trickiest for their marriage too. Good old Dad tries to push the God card again but Kirk bats him off, saying he doesn’t need a crutch to get through life! But Dad tells him that Jesus is more than a crutch – Kirk is going to go to hell for violating his standards. OK, but what about the Love Dare? Dad says that Jesus’ standards are so high that he considers mere hatred to be murder. So Jesus needs a dictionary, but what about the Love Dare? Remember the Love Dare? Dad says that just because Kirk routinely saves people from a firey death, he won’t be saved from eternal damnation. What about the Love Dare? Kirk vents his frustration with the Love Dare; he’s been giving and giving and showing his love to Kat but she keeps rejecting him over and over. Do you see, guys? It’s an analogy for Jesus! Jesus loves and loves and you keep rejecting him! Jesus is giving you a Love Dare!

Kirk has found his faith! He finally realises he needs Jesus and because he needs Jesus, he needs to show Kat how much he cares. For some reason. The Black Lieutenant is thrilled at Kirk’s conversion:

You my brotha from anotha motha but now we got the same fatha!

Kirk steps things up a gear. To stop the temptation of internet porn, he takes his computer monitor outside and destroys it with a baseball bat! Problem solved! Despite not having a proper conversation with his wife for weeks, he’s baffled that she’s prepared the divorce papers for him to sign. Not only that, he finds a love letter from bland Dr Gavin! Furious, he confront Dr Gavin, holding his left fist threateningly at him, growling, ‘my ring finger is feeling a whole lot better.’ Creeeeeepy.

So, throughout the film, Kat has been trying to save up money to get her mother some proper ability equipment for her home – a wheelchair, a proper bed, etc. Her insurance wouldn’t cover it, because the US medical system is a complete fucking joke. Anyway, one day she discovers that a mysterious gentleman has paid for all the equipment her mother needs. She rushes to Dr Gavin to thank him! Oh Dr Gavin, you just played your trump card! What can Kirk do now? Perhaps he can smash up some more of his stuff?

We interrupt the action for the most boring montage ever. People stand in sunset. People look thoughtfully. Rooms… are. A song about ‘waiting’ plays for about five minutes. Nothing happens.

The montage ends and we assume days have passed in the interim. Kirk notices that Kat is poorly in bed, so he buys her some medicine and soup. She reveals she’s discovered his Love Dare book! Kirk says he’s on Day 43. Day 43? But I thought it only went up to- ‘But who says I have to stop?’ Oh Kirk, you romantic! Truly you are blessed by Jesus himself! Kirk says, ‘I’ve learned you never leave your partner.’ You know – like the fire fighter’s code? Remember? This whole film is an analogy for something. Anyway, Kat isn’t ready to trust him yet.  She needs more time.

But then Kat realises that Dr Gavin only contributed $300 to her mother’s care. It was Kirk who paid the thousands required! What a twist – he must have given up his boat savings! Who needs a boat when you can walk on water, am I right? She runs to Kirk and tells him she loves him and forgives him – just like Jesus! This film is just like Jesus! And if he ever stops loving her, she will burn  and torture him forever and ever and ever. It is a beautiful story.

A happy ending! Except, his fellow fireman appear to have been raptured...

The film ends as Kirk and Kat reaffirm their marital vows in front of a replica of an ancient Roman torture device. Which is fair enough as my wedding took place in front of a giant red-hot anal poker.

Using all of my super-restraint, I refrained as best I could from having little digs at religion. Nonetheless, this is a very strange film. It is clear that it attempt to impart two important messages: 1) Jesus is your salvation; 2) Marriage is a covenant with God that you make for life, do not ever divorce. As a critical thinker, message (1) falls apart instantly (an omnipotent, omnibenevolent being who makes such a mess of things with original sin that the only thing he can do is sacrifice himself temporarily to himself in order to take a punishment by proxy and will still send us to hell if we don’t believe in him, because of love?) and message (2) is just odd. It never explains why they should be fighting for their marriage. At the beginning of the film they clearly aren’t right for each other, their career choices serve to exacerbate their relationship problems and they barely like each other, let alone love one another. Sure, they end up together in the end, but it’s all for the wrong reasons and so contrived. I was cheering for divorce throughout this film. Not because I’m anti-Christian, but because it seemed like the healthiest choice for both of them.

I didn’t really have time to include the comedy fire fighter sidekicks. There is a dumb, butch fireman and a wise-ass fireman and they serve as the only comic relief in this film in a constant battle of oneupmanship that has nothing to do with anything else. I guess this could classified as a rom-com, though in this case the rom and the com never meet. Odd.

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