Heaven's Fire (1999 TV Movie) User Reviews

Heaven's Fire: Well below par action flick

[Platypuschow · 3/10 · 29 June 2018]

I don't like action movies at this best of times but this is well below par even for that genre.

Starring Eric Roberts & Jürgen Prochnow it tells the story of a group of disgruntled former government employees who plan on getting back at old employers by stealing over 100 million dollars. Sadly things don't go to plan and they find themselves stuck in a burning building as well as an innocent tourist group.

But never fear as we also have fellow former government worker Eric Roberts there to save the day and the stakes are high as his future wife, her daughter and his son just happen to be there as well. Oh did I mention his ex wife and former friend are involved as well?

Cliched all the way to hell and back, looking seriously cheap and lacking any form of originality this messy action flick is one for true action junkies only.

The Good:

I liked the bit where it ended

The Bad:

Embarassing cover art

Some of the writing is ridiculously bad

That final stare down was comedic

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

Closing a wooden door will protect you from an incoming crashing helicopter

When performing a flying kick through a window one must always consider the landing

At no point does anyone acknowledge just how much to blame the antagonist is for everything that happens!

So bad it's almost an inadvertently good send-up of the genre

[maralex · 4/10 · 21 June 2001]

Although this is set in a skyscraper which is on fire, rather than a ship that's sinking beneath the water, lots of the stock characters seemed to have been filched from The Poseidon Adventure. Prochnow's villain has the strongest character definition, or seems to have, perhaps because he's acting better than the rest of the cast. Eric Roberts 'tries hard' as they might say in a school report, but it's a pretty thankless role, and his son and girlfriend are dreadful. The flames and a crashing plane scene are so bad they're hilarious. At one stage I expected Leslie Nielsen to appear saying 'And stop calling me Shirley'. There is a slight twist to the story, but not enough to redeem it. Really the best way to enjoy it is as a spoof, but as that's not what the director intended then it has to be written off as a pretty bad film. Good for Prochnow fans, okay for Eric Roberts fans, waste of time for anyone else. Incidentally, Prochnow's girlfriend was way too young for him; nice for him, but annoying to watch. Why not give men girlfriends within fifteen years of their age for a change?

Die In The Towering Poseidon Earthquake!

[Scott_Mercer · 5/10 · 3 January 2007]

A somewhat fun little time waster.

Elements of DIE HARD combine with THE TOWERING INFERNO, as well as small parts from THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE and EARTHQUAKE, to make a somewhat diverting action/disaster flick for the non-discriminating fan.

Some of the plot points don't make too much sense, but other little bits and bites are well-woven into the silly saga of the innocent tourists trapped in the burning high rise with terrorist/thieves, such as Michelle's revenge upon the goon who trapped her in the elevator, and the conveniently-placed throwing star in the hero's pocket that finally takes out the head Bad Guy...sometimes in writing a screenplay, even an action romp like this, it's tough to make all these bits work out.

There must have been a bit of a budget for this film, which apparently aired on the Fox Family channel in 1999. (Yeah, I didn't think this could be a post 9 - 11 idea). The special effects are pretty good, direction is okay apart from a few confusing bits I noticed, acting is pretty good, notably from the two leads, and photography is pretty nice, with good and impressive of shots of fire, flame-overs and explosions.

Over all, this is a decent film for action film freaks. I bought this film on DVD for one dollar...at that price it certainly is worth it, and MUCH better than most one dollar DVDs I have picked up. Wouldn't go out of your way to get it, but it certainly is not horrible enough to fall into the category of so bad that you'll be laughing at its incompetence.

If you want a similar film (with an even sillier plot) that is "so bad it's good", then I suggest you check out the Anna Nicole Smith vehicle SKYSCRAPER. See my review of that film under that title.

Good enough for a Friday night

[Renaldo Matlin · 29 August 2000]

Not surprisingly the bad guy (Prochnow) outshines the good guy (Roberts) in this average action-flick. The stunts and computer effects are not half bad, and a nice tongue-in-cheek attitude and good production value make up for most lulls in the plot. At times the actors actually seem to be enjoying themselves, and that's more than one should expect from this DIE HARD-clone (the hero is even named McConnell... hello? McClane!). Eric Roberts and Jürgen Prochnow in "The Towering Inferno" meets "Die Hard" on a TV-budget. How can you go wrong with that on a Friday night? :)

"I'm never coming to a public building again!"

[hwg1957-102-265704 · 5/10 · 14 June 2021]

A mixture of disaster movie and heist movie, it's an acceptable TV movie with nothing special about it. There is good work from the stunt performers and the fire effects are generally plausible but apart from the always excellent Jürgen Prochnow the acting is underwhelming. The attempts at emotive acting are paltry. The younger ones playing Jeremy and Aimee were particularly unconvincing and from their first appearance very irritating. It had potential that was never realised. Known in Poland as 'Thunder From The Blue' and in Italy as 'In The Centre Of Danger'.

below average action movie

[myriamlenys · 3/10 · 29 December 2019]

A band of criminals has planned an ambitious heist. Things start to go wrong when the leader of the group is recognized by one of his old colleagues. Fighting breaks out, one thing leads to another and before you can say "Whoosh !" a giant Federal building is on fire...

"Heaven's Fire" is not the best action-plus-disaster movie around. It's got rare flashes of wit and ingenuity, but for the most part it suffers from a lack of originality. "Stealing" and "plagiarism" are such ugly words ; let's just say that it was inspired, deeply inspired, by earlier movies such as the first "Die Hard" or "Towering Inferno". As a result the story feels like a random patchwork of influences, mixed with a great deal of explosions and stunts. Unsurprisingly, the dialogue is dull and pedestrian - these characters haven't got anything new or interesting to say.

Mind you, the stuntwork is very good indeed ; in another, better movie it could have become one of the assets of a classic...

The movie also shows a woeful lack of realism. This is, of course, true of many other action movies, but there the lack of realism can hide itself behind charismatic performances, quotable one-liners or a thumping good intrigue. No such luck here... As a result the problems become painfully, disturbingly obvious. For instance, the movie ends with a group of plucky people surviving not one, but two raging fires, which meet in a cataclysmic inferno. In real life, it is much more likely that these unfortunate victims would die a hideous death - from burning or boiling, from suffocation, from a giant fall down dozens of floors, from crushing beneath several hundred tonnes of débris, or any combination of these factors.

The movie raises other questions too, such as : what has happened to all the other people present in the building ? Surely a giant building such as that must house SOME visitors and employees, if only of the cleaning lady type ? And does this mean that we're looking at a howling, screaming catastrophe killing hundreds of innocent citizens ? Are we talking about a tragedy as terrible as the Brussels "Innovation" fire ?

So no, not recommended. Go and watch the originals...

rubbish die hard clone

[ghostman16 · 3/10 · 2 April 2007]

there are loads of die hard clones out there like under siege derailed and the Peacekeeper but heaven's fire has to be one of the worst.the story is a cross between die hard and towering inferno starring Eric Roberts as Dean McConnell a treasury agent who is trapped in a burning building that is taken over by a bunch of thief's led by Quentin Darby. the plot is okay but the problem with heavens fire is it is incredibly dull.dull action dull acting especially from Eric Roberts who can't act his way out a paper bag. i caught this film on telly late at night so i wasn't really expecting much but i still felt disappointed. there are much better die hard clones out there.i rate this film 3 out of 10

This crossover of "Die Hard" and "Towering Inferno" starts promising but fades fast. (Spoilers ahead!)

[RN0815 · 6/10 · 6 October 2004]

A group of fired guards hijacks a helicopter to raid the Treasury building and to rob the printing plates for the new $100 bills. Although their plan seems to be pretty unrealistic (where do they plan to go, since they never tried to hide their identities or even their fingerprints, and how will they turn the plates into the 100 million dollars they expect?), it's okay for a cheap action movie. Introducing the robbers as normal people who plan a crime way to big for them, not as a gang of unscrupulous professionals, could have given the plot more opportunities. Especially the faked helicopter crash is pretty funny and lets the baddies appear real likable, and if the plan had worked, nobody would have been killed or seriously injured at all. And then they spoil it all in a couple of minutes: Tom becomes a ruthless villain without any understandable cause. Quentin, the boss, appears ice cold and later, the more went wrong, real menacing. The rest of the men remain faceless goons until they are eliminated one by one.

On the opposite, we have Dean, also a fired guard, a former friend of Quentin. With his teenage son Jeremy he comes to the building to pick up his fiancée and her daughter. Jeremy don't like his future stepmother and stepsister, and I don't blame him. Of course all four, along with a handful of people from the typical disaster movie crowd, are present right in the moment of the robbery. After the first shoot-out they look at each other, "Oops, nobody was hurt, everything is fine, never mind looking for the shot guards lying all around, let's go!" Real nice people!

Naturally, Dean, who is supposed to be the hero of this flick, leaves his family alone and follows the robbers to the roof. He shoots the pilot and causes the helicopter to crash into the middle of the building, setting it on fire. For undisclosed reasons there are some oil barrels on the roof, they are hit by bullets, and so a second fire starts. Of course Dean, his family, the disaster movie folk, and the robbers are caught between the two fires.

Police and Fire Brigade can't do anything and at least they don't bother the viewers with doing anything. (Which is, in movies like this, usually something stupid.)

So everything is clear, good guys here, bad guys there, and somehow the hero will dispatch the villains and save the courageous and the hysterical after the cowardly and the selfish have fallen into the fire (sorry, no little dog)... But not so fast! Now the only real interesting character comes into play: Female robber Michelle, loved by Quentin but hated by Tom, and locked in an elevator by the latter. By the way, she also happens to be Dean's ex-wife and Jeremy's mother - maybe they should have named the film "Family Inferno". Thankfully, after the good people rescued her, she is not turning into a typical backstabbing femme fatal, still going for the money. Even more thankfully, she is not turning into a heroine, regretful and trying to compensate. She just tries to get out alive - with her son, but not caring much for her ex-husband - and hopefully to weasel out scotfree. When she shoots Tom, it's just revenge and not for a moment she considers to sacrifice herself and to be the one who has to close the strongroom door from the outside.

So, Dean has to do this, leaving his two wives and two children behind. Not surprisingly, he finds a way to survive. Surprisingly, he also saves Quentin from burning alive and hands him over to the law. So they can burn him on the chair instead. (Just kidding, Quentin is white!)

So everything is fine, the surviving disaster movie people are thankful that they survived, had a great adventure, got their children finally to like each other, got the stepson's troublesome natural mother finally locked away, have a hero instead of a loser as father... okay, the not surviving may have asked what exactly caused the fire. The government is thankful too and offers the man who saved their precious printing plates his old job as head of the guards of the Treasury Building.

(Wait a minute! What Treasury Building? They don't have it anymore, thanks to Dean's heroically effort.)

If it's set in Seattle, film it in Seattle!

[Drewboy-2 · 8/10 · 20 November 2005]

I saw this film last night on TV at a hotel in Daejeon, South Korea. It really did make me think, okay, one part "Towering Inferno", one part "Poseidon Adventure". But now that I see this film was made in 1999, can't help but wonder if it might've been watched by Al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden and been an inspiration for them, especially the helicopter crash sequence. Also, it gets SO irritating to see that a movie is set in an American city that I've lived in (Seattle) but then absolutely nothing looks familiar and sure enough, it turns out to be filmed in Vancouver BC which stunt-doubles for so many places in America. Film in America, please! But all in all, a good suspense piece.

Low-budget, made-for-TV rip-off of Die Hard

[Phoenix_13 · 26 April 2004]

I was not terribly impressed by this movie, but it was not horrible. It's quite obviously a low-budget, made-for-TV rip-off of DIE HARD, but well-acted by Roberts, Prochnow, and most of the rest of the cast.

Apparently, Fox TV was using the old HIGHLANDER series' actors' pool for the supporting cast, since no fewer than seven characters in this movie were alums of one HL episode or another.

Not a terribly exciting movie; nothing original. One or two really big plot holes, but at least in comparison to some of the real stinkers I've seen recently (in an effort to find more of Prochnow's films), not bad.

If you're a truly die-hard (no pun intended) fan of Prochnow or Roberts, you'll probably enjoy this film. Otherwise, just go watch DIE HARD again.

Really Dissapointed

[Pat1973 · 2 September 1999]

I wish I could of liked this movie but I did not! Thank god it s on t.v. This movie never would of made it in the theater. Eric is great in it, but the acting really did not put up to par! It's on Lifetime T.V. If you like Eric Roberts See it, if not don't bother!