Fire with Fire [Blu-Ray]

Not to be mistaken with the mid-'80s Fire with Fire, a Romeo & Juliet tale of a randy Catholic schoolgirl (Virginia Madsen) and boy from the wrong side of the tracks (Craig Scheffer) fighting for their love, this decidedly worse Fire with Fire literally features a firefighter (Josh Duhamel) on a mission of vengeance (fighting fire with fire: get it?) against a white supremacist sociopath (Vincent D'Onofrio). It opens with little grace — Jeremy (Duhamel) plans to have fun night of drinking with friends when he inadvertently winds up in the middle of a racially and territorially motivated shooting at a local convenience store — and follows the witness protection formula without any diversions. He's put into protection by U.S. Marshall Mike Cella (Bruce Willis), where he falls in love, quickly and without any context, with tough marksman Talia (Rosario Dawson), only to be hunted down and backed into a corner, where he decides to fight "fire with fire." In following the vengeance formula, an abundance of clumsy, superfluous elements and clichés abound, with Jeremy approaching a random pair of black men to obtain an untraceable gun (it's not racist because he's romantically involved with Rosario Dawson) and winding up in the East Side Crips' headquarters, of sorts, with 50 Cent and a man chewing on a toothpick. Determining that "he's a'ight," the Crips sponsor his efforts to kill a man that has a giant tattoo of a red swastika on his neck. What unfolds is series of close-up gunshot wounds, gratuitous fights and cheaply stylized camerawork that actually follows bullets through the air. It's terrible. Worse is that the dreadfully cheesy metaphor of fire comes up in the climax, as Jeremy enacts his vengeance in a burning building, which he's inevitably prepared for, being a firefighter and all. Apparently, director David Barrett has a background in coordinating stunts and directing television, which, sadly, is very clear throughout the duration of this movie. The only supplement is an extended trailer with the occasional interview snippet tossed in so it could be referred to as a "Making of."