Bullet Points: Quiet Fire
Acting careers are a lot like life, they are filled with twists and turns and ups and downs. You could be on top of the world one moment and on the brink of obscurity the next. And like life it is impossible to ever know what is coming next.
Coursing the career trajectory of an actor can be fascinating. Let’s take a look at Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs… Jacobs began acting in 1974 with a few small roles in movies like Death Wish, where he played one of the many muggers that Paul Kersey dispatches of. But the very next year LHJ had a major role in 1975’s Cooley High and the world was introduced to a character that would forever be associated with Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, Freddie “Boom Boom” Washington on Welcome Back, Kotter.
But who could have guessed that 10 years after Kotter went off the air, Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs would end up hooking up with PM Entertainment (a force in the direct to video world, a world that did not even exist in 1979). PM Entertainment was Lawrence Hilton-Jacob’s introduction to playing an action hero. LHJ starred as Detective Jon Chance in a series of movies for PM. But in addition to acting, Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs dabbled in directing including 1991’s Quiet Fire.
- Running Man: Quiet Fire does not start off quietly, we immediately begin with a man running for his life in some dark alleys before he manages to hop in a car, and the foot chase becomes a car chase. The man on the run is a guy named Walt and his pursuers are hired guns by a wealthy Senatorial candidate J.W. Whelan who wants Walt dead. Whelan almost gets his wish, when Walt takes a bullet, but things end up worse for the guys pursuing them when they end up crashing and their car blows up because this is an action movie and more specifically an action movie produced by PM Entertainment.
- Running For Office Man: So why does J.W. Whelan want Walt dead? Because J.W. Whelan has built his campaign around the fact that he is some sort of American hero who proudly served his country in Vietnam. But there are two men who served with Whelan that know the shady shit he was doing over there and the real man behind his public persona. One of those men was Walt, the other was the guy a wounded Walt turns to for help… Jesse Palmer (Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs). Jesse is the manager of a Gold’s Gym and is more than a little surprised to see his old buddy Walt, he is even more surprised when Walt dies in his office from the untreated gunshot wound. Jesse calls the cops and they bring him downtown to make his statement. When Jesse returns home he has guys waiting to kill him, Jesse manages to escape and he turns to an ex-girlfriend for help.
- No Good Deed: Jesse’s ex Jana (Nadia Marie in her one and only film role) reminded me of a poor man’s Vanity. She reluctantly agrees to help Jesse, who it is obvious she still has some feeling for, and allows him to crash at her place but just for one night. Jana ends up getting way more than she bargained for, when Jesse shows up a second time (so much for just one night) after another attempt is made on his life and he calls the detectives that were investigating Walt’s death and tells them what happened. Detective Russo (Robert Z’Dar, Young Rebels) then asks Jesse if there is a safe place he can meet him. Jesse tells Russo to meet him at Jana’s apartment… instead of the detectives, some more guys in the seemingly endless J.W. Whelan financed hitman parade show up and now Jesse and Jana find themselves on the run!
- Stacking the Deck: At this point, Jesse starts putting things together, like the fact that the cops that were supposed to be helping Jesse sold him out. And Jesse also figures out the man behind Walt’s death and the man who now wants him dead too, was his old commanding officer J.W. Whelan. But can one man, take down a man with the wealth and resources of a J.W. Whelan? If you are a counter insurgency expert like Jesse Palmer, you better believe it. Palmer uses his wits, some guns, electricity and a well placed explosive to level the playing field and bring the movie the conclusion you would expect.
I bought in to Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs as the hero, with the exception of the fight scenes… if he was just some average guy who found himself thrust into a life or death scenario I could have let it slide. But Jesse Palmer was supposed to be a green beret level soldier so he should not have been throwing weak ass punches and clumsily going through the fight choreography motions.
The weakest point of the film was the villain, J.W. Whelan. Whelan was played by Lance Lindsay, who only had one other acting credit to his name and it happened back when LHJ was still a Sweathog. Lindsay had almost no screen presence and I did not buy him as a criminal mastermind especially if you really think about it. Whelan has Detective Russo on his payroll… why didn’t he just have Russo meet Jesse and Jana at her apartment like they were expecting and have Russo and his partner kill them. It makes no sense…
Quiet Fire was a PM Entertainment paint by numbers movie and not one worth shouting about. In fact, Quiet Fire is a movie PM should have probably kept quiet.
What is worth shouting about however are THESE BONUS BULLET POINTS!!!
- If You Ever: …wanted to be confused if an assassin was male or female, then Quite Fire is the movie for you.
- AKA: Quite Fire was released as Blaze Away in Denmark.
- Familiar Faces: Karen Black played Walt’s hippy girlfriend. Black was a PM favorite, who also appeared with Wings Hauser in Blood Money… I remembered Jastero Coviare (the actor who played Detective Russo’s dirty cop partner, Detective Overstreet) as Bear in another Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs movie, L.A. Vice.
- Favorite Quote #1: “I feel like hammered dog shit.” – Walt
- Favorite Quote #2: “You could fuck up a wet dream!” – Whelan
- DING: The name of the covert elite forces team that Whelan, Walt and Jesse were on in Vietnam was Quiet Fire.
- Extreme Cure for Stuttering: I am not sure if the actor playing Walt’s brother Clyde actually had a speech impediment or if it was an artistic choice. Jesse visits Clyde in hopes of finding where Walt hid the hard evidence he had against Whelan, during the convo Clyde had a noticeable stutter. After Jesse leaves, some of Whelan’s men show up and throw Clyde out the window of his high rise apartment and to his death… Clyde never stuttered again.
