“Flashpoint” Tenth Anniversary Edition: Jenna On Fire

Thirty seconds into this movie I knew it was going to be the most awesome movie about fire ever. And that is why, nine years after it first appeared, Wicked did an amazing job of repackaging and value-adding "Flashpoint" for people like me who had never seen or heard of it—as well as for people like me who miss Asia Carrera, Jill Kelly, and Jenna Jameson Mark II.

Read our review after the gap.

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Flashpoint X

Studio: Wicked, Adam & Eve
Director: Brad Armstrong
Cast: Jenna Jameson, Asia Carrera, Brittany Andrews, Jill Kelly, Johnni Black, Misssy, Sindee Cox, Sydnee Steele

Review by Gram Ponante

We are in a coed firehouse with guys who look like fireman and women who look like Jenna Jameson and Jill Kelly. If director Brad Armstrong had pitched me this movie, I would have stopped him right there and dumped money on him.

After firefighter Robert Dunn is killed in the line of duty in Repo Man-adjacent L.A. we are treated to a blinding array of props, locations, and equipment rentals unprecedented in porn movie history. There are fire trucks, at least ten firefighter uniforms, a cemetery scene, and a helicopter (although that might have been a lucky shot), as well as real fire, which Pirates didn't even have.

Unfortunately there is also dialogue more appropriate to a film with a smaller budget.

At the memorial service: "I want to thank Robert Dunn. And the loss to his family."

At the gravesite: "Let it go."/"This isn't over - not by a long shot!"

In the aftermath: "I keep thinking that I signed on to make my dad happy. He's a 20-year veteran of the f- department."

Don't get me wrong; I love and respect porn as an art form and its historic need to get to the sex by any means necessary. But the promise inherent in a movie about a coed firehouse is almost squandered when smart people are made to say stupid things.

Luckily, back at the firehouse Jill Kelly and Sindee are commiserating with one of their co-workers. He tells them, of course, that if they keep complaining they might as well pack it in. It's tough love. Then they have sex. So powerful is the idea that if a man just comforts a woman in a time of sorrow she will have sex with him - and bring a friend - that I applaud the production for bringing this truth to film.

And then an interesting B story starts to develop about a fireman's secret injuries and painkiller dependence. He will not share the news with Jenna because she already ditched a gimpy fireman and he doesn't want it to happen to him. "The minute I can't carry my load," he tells snoopy Jill Kelly, "I'll pack it in."

It also develops that Jenna leaves injury in her wake; at least two people in her past are revealed to have been killed or handicapped. It compromises her work. Will she get it together by the end of the movie?

About this time we wonder how many more fire-related sex scenes we can have. A likely candidate - the grateful rescue - appears when Asia Carrera's friend almost drowns in their swimming pool. We think it's gonna happen, and then - Nope, the painkiller-addicted firefighter has a sexy dream. When in doubt about where the next sex scene is going to show up in your feature porn script, write a sexy dream. Then nothing has to make sense.

Luckily, two heroic firefighters return poolside to cavort with thankful Carrera and Sydnee Steele. Yet a third plot twist about Jenna's possible involvement in a string of arsons threatens to complicate matters, but then more sex happens.

It is a pleasure to watch such an ambitious project, the glamour project of its time, featuring 1998's A-list porn talent. The dialogue keeps it solidly in the realm of porn movies, but "Flashpoint" is a excellent porn movie.

Now for the extras. "Flashpoint X" comes with three additional DVDs, including all the commentary you would like about this movie, storyboards, and lots of Jenna Jameson. Jameson and Wicked became famous together, so Jenna is all over the extra footage, and Jameson fans probably need no other impetus to purchase this package.

While this was a Wicked movie through and through, co-producing credit goes to Adam & Eve. As they did with Digital Playground's Pirates several years later, Adam & Eve split the bill for this mega-production. Flashpoint is just as good, if not better, than Pirates,and earns extra points for not calling itself "Crackdraft".

· Wicked (wickedpictures.com)
· Buy "Flashpoint X" (cduniverse.com)

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Previously: Porn Reviews Archive