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Firecracker
But, what of the finished product? After all the hype, does FIRECRACKER live up to and surpass it, or does it merely fizzle out? Step right up, ladies and gentlemen, and Set in small-town Kansas during the summer, the story focuses on the White family. Jimmy (Jak Kendall) is sensitive and artistic but is constrained by Eleanor (Karen Black), his fanatically religious mother, and David (Mike Patton), his abusive older brother. With the arrival of a traveling carnival, Jimmy finds respite from his ordinary life as he is attracted to the allure of the show - especially towards the main attraction, chanteuse Sandra (also Black), who has her own demons to face. The main one is the carnival's owner, Frank (also Patton), who is fixated with her. There turns out to be a link between Sandra and the White family, specifically David, and shortly after this discovery David disappears. Local police chief Ed (Susan Traylor) attempts to unravel what has happened to him, and as deceit, abuse, and murder are brought to the light of day, it leads to dire consequences for almost everyone involved. That's about as much of the story that needs to be revealed, for there are some twists that are best seen rather than read about. Billed as being "based on true events," FIRECRACKER isn't quite a docudrama, and it's not a melodrama; what initially seems to be a murder mystery on the surface dares to go a little deeper into territory that most mysteries would normally eschew. The film's makers have no problem in classifying it; as stated with the exhortation in "carnival speak" that opens FIRECRACKER, it's simply called "a tragedy." PEP SQUAD could be labeled the work of an Angry Young Man, with its satirical look at violence, values, and hypocrisy set in a Kansas filtered through a WB/DAWSON'S CREEK mindset. With FIRECRACKER, that Angry Young Man has matured a bit and is more tightly focused. He's still angry about the same things, but instead of using satire as a buffer for the darker aspects, his touch in this instance is a bit subtler and more poetically cinematic. FIRECRACKER excels in visual style… But style only goes so far, for there has to be substance in the story and performances. If FIRECRACKER is noted for nothing else, it will certainly be remembered for giving Karen Black a platform to display her range of talent. Most of her recent work has been relegated to cameos in low-budget projects, but the roles of Sandra/Eleanor rank on the scale of her past work seen in THE DAY OF THE LOCUST, NASHVILLE, and COME BACK TO THE FIVE AND DIME, JIMMY DEAN, JIMMY DEAN. Susan Traylor is notable in her role as Ed, the police chief who slowly and craftily pieces together the bulk of the mystery, and in his screen debut, Mike Patton makes a strong impression in his roles of David/Frank. Steve Balderson and his collaborators have crafted FIRECRACKER into a multi-leveled journey of expression, using the "true story" of a murder in small-town Kansas as the spine on which the tragedy hangs, their emphasis not being on how this happened but on why. The film examines cycles of abuse and denial, the gulf between what people believe and what they actually do, and the dichotomy of "light" and "dark" worlds of existence. This is very much Lynchian material and one can argue that FIRECRACKER owes a heavy debt to the father of ERASERHEAD for influencing its visual design. Its execution, however, is very much a singular vision, very impressive for a work on its scale and a huge leap forward for Balderson. FIRECRACKER is easily one of the more notable independent films to come out… in recent years. FIRECRACKER will hopefully find a distributor
at some point. This is a film expressly designed to be seen on the
big screen, so take advantage of it when the opportunity presents
itself. ---------------------------------------- MICRO-FILM Magazine - 2005
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