Burning Rage

Popular "country music" performer Barbara Mandrell makes an inauspicious feature film debut, in this work made for television, as Kate Bishop, a federal agency geologist assigned to assist residents of an imaginary town: Vashti, Tennessee (actual filming is at Lake City in eastern Tennessee's Appalachian region) in relocating from their homes endangered by the potential of gas explosions due to underground fires within coal mines beneath the town and, while performing her duties, she discovers a possible conspiracy organized by a local businessman, using the blazes for his own profit and thereby altering the focus of Kate's function. Her perspective shifts as well by an immediate romantic involvement with the local fish and game warden, played blandly by Tom Wopat, and as the television pedigree of the piece becomes increasingly evident, so does choppy editing and general technical mediocrity, with a script lacking in logic, continuity flaws abounding, and pedestrian playing, notably by the pleasant but wooden Mandrell, although there is role commitment from always reliable Carol Kane who gathers in acting honours in what is ultimately a trite and forgettable affair.