City on Fire (2009)

Regent Entertainment

Peacock Films

R4 DVD

This is a somewhat better than average “end of the world” film drawing on current ecological concerns to make its point.

An energy supply firm, Unicorp, has located a huge pocket of methane gas under California. They have been test drilling around the pocket to measure its size. The methane, however, is making its way up to the surface through cracks in the rocks caused by the drilling disturbance. This coincides with a hundred-degree heatwave. Spot fires and methane explosions are breaking out across the Los Angeles area. Unicorp is trying to cover up their part in the problem for commercial gain. Their measuring and test drilling is being pushed ahead and is nearly finished, but their slipshod work will cause them problems if they are found to be the cause of the fires.

There is a bigger problem brewing. The escaping methane is causing a mini-greenhouse effect over the Los Angeles basin. It is being intensified by the other gases like carbon dioxide coming from the fires. This is causing a heat wave like none ever seen before. When the temperature hits 140 degrees it will vapourise so much methane that the effect will reach a runaway level and the thermal rise will be unstoppable. The increased pressure from the heat will rupture the huge main gas pocket and it will all be over for life in the LA basin. That is estimated to happen early in the evening of this day.

There are some who see that the fires cannot be naturally caused. At the Grier Research Centre a scientist, Dr Charles Covington, is working for Unicorp and is controlling the drilling program by computer. He is unaware of the problems Unicorp is causing. In the same building Dr Kate Jansen has a so-far unsuccessful research project on cloud-seeding under way. Her work is hampered by her lack of publishable success and her funding at the lab is under threat. She realises that the Unicorp drilling and methane release is the cause of the higher-than-normal heat wave. The State’s Governor Quinlan is in the building and orders Covington to shut down the drilling. Covington warns them that enough methane has already been released to start the runaway cycle. Governor Quinlan orders Los Angeles evacuated.

The corrupt manager of Unicorp also comes to the lab, intending to kill the lab manager who has threatened to tell the Governor what he knows of the methane project and its effects. Covington, now he knows what disaster his work has caused, has a change of conscience. Kate Jansen believes that her cloud seeding research may give her a way to lower the temperature if she can seed a storm cloud that is building up and heading towards LA, but her access to the expensive drone that seeds the clouds has been cut off by the lab manager.

Together they must defeat Unicorp’s manager and convince the lab manager to release control of the drone to them. They must get it loaded and fly it into a developing storm and try to make it rain. Even then, will it work?

The story is generally credible but has some defects, like the cloud-seeding – that technology has been proven in Australia for over fifty years - but it all comes together pretty well. The use of CGI and special effects is nothing spectacular, seeming to consist mostly of explosions and fire. This gives the film a low-budget look but it is made up for by some good acting. In a way I prefer the low-profile feel of the film. It could have been an excuse for lots of spectacular effects and a shallow plot, but I feel the approach taken by this film works better.

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This review will appear in Volume 3 No.2 of the digital and print edition of Synergy Magazine.

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