Fireproof Encourages Troubled Couples to Revitalize Their Marriage

I’m a child of the 80s, so like many of my generation, I grew up watching Kirk Cameron on Growing Pains, but it’s been years since I saw him in anything, so he was one of the reasons I was interested in watching Fireproof, a little movie by Sherwood Pictures that made a bit of a splash when it hit theaters in 2008. Written and directed by Alex and Stephen Kendrick, Fireproof encourages troubled couples to seek marriage resolution in a Christian context. It’s a movie with a message, but it also entertains.

Kirk Cameron, the only actor in the film with more than three movies to his credit, plays Caleb Holt, a fire chief who can’t seem to see eye to eye with his wife Catherine (Erin Bethea) anymore. In their limited time together, the two are constantly fighting, as neither feels that the other is properly respectful or attentive. Caleb is so fed up that when Catherine demands a divorce, he readily accepts the idea. But a chat with his dad (Harris Malcolm) convinces him to go through with “the love dare,” a 40-day challenge to revitalize his marriage.

The primary focus of the movie is on the relationship between Caleb and Catherine, who works at a hospital and is stressed to the max about her mother’s ailing health. While she visits her parents a couple times a week, she desperately wishes she could get them the medical equipment they need. Also distracting her is a handsome doctor who flirts with her frequently at work. I found her character sympathetic but also cold, since she is so utterly unresponsive to most of Caleb’s attempts to regain her favor. This is partly because a coworker suggests that he is trying to scam her into getting a better divorce settlement. Nonetheless, she seems excessively icy, especially after Caleb is seriously injured rescuing a child from a fire. She also has the least natural-sounding dialogue of all the characters in the movie.

Unsurprisingly, considering how much more experienced he is, I thought Cameron gave the strongest performance in the movie, and his character does transform from someone who is angry much of the time into a man who is humble and grateful for the people he has in his life. I also enjoyed Ken Bevel as Michael, the devout Christian who works with Caleb and shares both wisdom and humor in his talks with him. The firehouse camaraderie between these two and the three junior firefighters, all of whom are there mostly for comic relief, contributes some nice levity to the film while also showing the importance of having supportive friends. Meanwhile, the movie’s two big action sequences are well-shot and quite intense.

Fireproof is a movie that is geared largely to Christians, so there’s some element of preaching to the choir at play here as Caleb eventually becomes more open to the Biblical foundation his father tries to lay down for him. Nonetheless, the exciting firefighting sequences and the widely applicable tips for improving a rocky relationship increase its general appeal, and the heavy-handed moments are sprinkled pretty naturally into the story. I see that the Kendricks have another movie coming out in 2011; here’s hoping they do just as well with the next one.