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Rating:  - Blue Smoke DVD
I just watched this movie on Easter Sunday and was a bit disappointed in how far from the book it was. Granted the ending was similar to the book, and a few parts, like Bo seeing Reena for the first time matched the book, but that's pretty much were it ended. A lot of liberties were taken with the manuscript and a lot of characters were either changed, hence the firefighter Hugh went from a couple dates in the book and being shot and burnt to he and Reena being engaged and him blown up in a florist shop, and other good characters left out all together. Also, the cat and mouse game of who was setting the fires was greatly played down to the point the plot was virtually lost.
The movie was okay, the actors chosen were good, but it didn't come close to being as good as the book was.
Rating:  - Carolina Moon
Excellent DVD. Perhaps more of Nora Roberts books will be produced as
movies.
Rating:  - Blue Smoke gag gag
Wow, what a ridiculously bad movie. The acting was awful and the whole premise was idiotic. She goes through a fire maze and Bakula tells her that they are "going in". She says no, it is my call, to which his reply is, "okay" but made in a stupidly childish voice. That is how this movie begins and it didn't get any better.
Her first boyfriend dies in a fire but don't worry, he was asleep and didn't feel a thing. Yeah right, not even being on fire woke him up? Give me a break. The acting was so so bad. I was hoping the movie would get better but it never did. I ended up fast forwarding through the totally predictable plot trying to get to something interesting. Don't waste your time or money on this movie. Move on, nothing to see here.
Rating: - Obsession
As the DVD back cover says, 'This movie has passion, family food and fire.' And they were correct. Alicia Witt stars as Reena who at the age of eleven watches with fascination as her parents business burns to the ground. When the fire is put out she meets Scott Bakula's character, Officer John Minger, that is an arson investigator. So it is no surprise as we flash forward and we see that she has become an arson investigator herself.
There is the requisite romance required for these made for T.V. movies. But in this movie our heroine seems to have attracted the attention of a psychotic arsonist who seems determined to set on fire everything she loves. Will she be able to find this pyromaniac before her new love goes up in flames? The movie also touches on the importance of a arson investigators job.
Rating: - Average tv movie
This is the second Nora Roberts adaptation that I've seen, after "Angels Fall", and the first one where I've read the book. The book Blue Smoke was pretty good but not without flaws, and the movie shares some of its flaws. The biggest one is how long it takes for Reena to figure out who her nemesis is (although this was less obvious in the movie than in the book). One bad thing that the movie adds is that the climax feels more silly than suspenseful (especially because the bad guy actor speaks in a really silly voice, supposedly because he had cancer - anyway it was way too over-the-top).
I did like this movie better than "Angels Fall", which somehow felt cheaper. Alicia Witt did a pretty good job playing Reena, but the best performance was by the still very beautiful Talia Shire playing her mother. But overall, it's an average tv-movie, no better or worse than most of its kind, but definitely not good enough for a theatrical release. Recommended for Roberts fans and fans of romantic suspense made-for-tv-movies. Others needn't bother.
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