Talk us through itIn the year 2012 Sydney has gone 247 days without any rain, and there's only about two weeks worth of water left in the reservoirs. The Government has enacted draconian legislation to try and restrict water usage, and hopes are high the new desalination plant might offer a solution.Unfortunately for the New South Wales State Capital a passing lightening storm ignites the tinder dry bush, and suddenly the City is facing major fire fronts to the south, north, and to the west. Not bad considering there was a single lightening strike really. Making life even more dangerous for the voluntary fire brigades called on to combat the blazes is high winds that are causing the fire fronts to act erratically. Out West things are getting desperate with fires encroaching on outlying suburbs, and when the water runs out there's nothing to stop major loss of property and life. Things are getting pretty fruity with no hope in sight. But what's happened to the water from the desalination plant?
ReviewScorched, which aired as basically a mini series over a week, was presented as a multi-media experience as Channel 9 in Australia claimed they were revolutionising the way television would be presented in this Country. Guess what constitutes a revolution over at Channel 9 is pretty much old hat for about everyone else, but there you go at least they were trying something different to their normal run of substandard Soaps, juvenile comedy shows, and rehashed movies. The whole experience for me was summed up in Director Tony Tilse's claim that Scorched is "a true story, it just hasn't happened yet.". Now that would have been a great line except Tilse stole it, without citing the source, direct from the BBC telemovie Supervolcano. Guess Channel 9 viewers wouldn't have caught the superior BBC movie as it aired on the ABC. Lets put the torch to this Scorched. and burn it on down to the ground.Like most made for television stuff Scorched presents the plot from a number of different character viewpoints. Unfortunately as most of these characters are cardboard cut-outs and infinitely forgettable that's not necessarily a good thing. Lets see dedicated Doctor, crusading Journalist, eee-vil politician, People prepared to put their careers on the line for the public good, and a partridge in a pear tree. I'm stopping before I fill this review up with the standard characterisations that are rolled out in what passes for a script here. To put it simply Writer Tim Pye is taking no risks and simply presents a hodge podge of roles that we have seen before, and are already bored with. Director Tony Tilse compounds the error by keeping everyone in their comfort zones, with raging firestorms yet, and at no stage of Scorched's running time are you ever fooled into not believing you are watching a made for television product. It's the big bland day out at Channel 9 folks, which is about what we were all expecting right? On the bright side of the flare up there are some pretty impressive shots of total destruction going down in fiery goodness. Probably not so much fun for people who have lived through major fires in this Country of course. Scenes of fires, smoke wafting all over the shop, and flying debris do make you wonder if Director Tilse didn't drop the odd bit of real footage into proceedings. The scenes of share panic and total chaos in the first half of the movie, as things rage out of control, were well constructed. Indeed it was a master stroke to have a media crew as a significant story device, that allowed the Audience to get right in amongst the embers. I'm actually going to give the Director a passing mark on his action set pieces, there's some pretty intense stuff going down as smoke invades the suburban streets of the city. Naturally in the modern era we can't simply have a story with some strong characterisation to get us through the night, oh no we must have a Government conspiracy running in parallel to the main course in order to ensure everyone gets their Mayor Vaughn "keep the beaches" open moment. All this second plot line did for me was take me out of the danger the City was apparently in. Simply bad script writing and a complete waste of some pretty effective action scenes. There are an absolutely huge number of issues with Scorched that will have you wondering if perhaps Channel 9 were running a book on how much shite they could shovel at their Audience before someone woke up to the fact that the Emperor had no clothes on. It's a 9 audience kids, not much chance of that. When things explode people standing next to the explosion tend not to walk away without a scratch and with their perfectly coffered hair still in place. In the face of an ever encroaching bush fire why would a film crew decide for no apparent reason to film a filler piece from within a chemical plant? There's no prizes for guessing the answer there. And of course helicopter rescue crews tend to leave the pregnant woman behind and just take her kids. I haven't got room in this review to list the 101 mistakes Scorched makes, including the fact that the NSW Government is apparently just two people, so go watch the telemovie and list your own favourites. The defining moment for me in the movie was when the fire seemed to roar at a character, just like the Shark in that Jaws the Revenge movie. There's one cardinal sin any movie should seek to avoid, and naturally Scorched didn't even bother to swerve around the issue. You cannot build up a total disaster scenario and then have a cop out resolution, that's not only lazy writing but it shows a total disrespect from your audience's intelligence. Oh wait it's Channel 9 we're talking about here. Just when you think Armageddon is here and the fire fronts are going to go down town to the CBD, the State Fire Coordinator dude tells us that one advantage of major fires is that they burn their fuel real quickly and naturally extinguish themselves. Clearly all those trees and homes in the suburbs aren't fuel suddenly. Wam bam thank you mam, wouldn't you know it, within five minutes the fires are all out and the survivors are counting the cost in the aftermath. Hardly worth combating really, everyone should have just headed to the beach for a mass sausage sizzle and left the fires to their own devices. Cop out ending, and about what one would expect from the brains trust at a certain low brow television studio we could name. Hey being nice here, I didn't even mention Channel 9. Where Scorched really gets it wrong however is in taking the subject matter seriously, they are out to give us a message with this one. The only message I was receiving was that you really shouldn't bother watching commercial telemovies made in Australia, what's the frequency Kenneth. The Yanks do this thing so much better, but then they tend to just dive on in and wriggle around in the popcorn "B" grade feel of the whole thing. Maybe Yahoo Serious should have scripted Scorched. Apparently with Scorched we have an ensemble cast, that translates to a bunch of "B" grade television actors hamming it up like it's Christmas dinner. Cameron Daddo stands out in a non-demanding role, Rachel Carpani has a future in comedy judging from the over dramatic demonstration put on here, and Georgie Parker continues her overrated run on Aussie television. Overall the acting is of about the level you would expect from a telemovie, i.e. not terribly good. To round out this smorgasbord of disaster we are presented with in Scorched Guy Gross's score is over the top, and you have to think that Gross didn't bother watching the show.
Summary ExecutionScorched is another overrated Aussie telemovie that not a lot of people are going to bother seeing and which remains at best a footnote in some TV Executive's diary. Television for the masses to eat their meat and three veg in front of really, only redeeming feature is that it didn't cost anything to watch. I kind of thought we gave up making this type of half arse production in the 1970s, guess I was wrong, Channel 9 are playing catch up here.Surprisingly Scorched got nominated for a TV Week Silver Logie in the "Most Outstanding Drama Series, Miniseries, or Telemovie", and proving there is a God it lost out to Underbelly, ironically another Channel 9 offering. Of course nominations are via public voting amongst TV Week readers, so in the great scheme of things winning a Logie is akin to winning a meat raffle down the Pub. For anyone remotely interested the whole shooting box is out on DVD, don't rush to purchase as the price is going to rapidly fall there as stocks are left unsold. And in a first for ScaryMinds, if you want my review copy drop me a line and the postage cos. No recommendation on Scorched it's a by the numbers pedestrian effort that sums up why telemovies aren't worth watching if made in Australia and not having either ABC or SBS involvement. In a return to the past Channel 9 stoke the flames of viewer discontent. Scorched brings new meaning to the term "idiot box".
ScaryMinds Rates this movie as ... Half marks for a half arsed effort.
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