Oceans of Fire

Great b-cast full of chemistry in a well oiled, no frills machine by director Steve Carver (R. I. P). The dirty dozen on the high seas. Actually, it's only half-a-dozen for this outing. A ragtag group of convicts (who are trained divers) are offered a dangerous job, which involves the deepest offshore rig where they'll be diving depths 1000+ ft. And it's just them along with their boss (a potent, no-bull Gregory Harrison). They have only 45 days to complete the job. And a documentary crew (led by Cynthia Sikes) are given full access to the rig. In the hope of drumming up some positive PR. And like how these stories usually play out, we learn the company boss (David Carradine in sly, smarmy form) likes to take short cuts to get the job done. Even risking life's to see it through. So the plot can fall into a predictable pattern, and some heavy dialogue exchanges opens up cliched character building centred mainly upon Harrison's hard-shelled former navy officer character. The action-thrills when it comes are low-scale in execution, thanks to its budget coming off like a TV movie, yet the familiar disaster beats still have high stakes and the locations have authenticity. Sometimes I think the music lets the whole thing down, and somewhat cheapens the suspenseful situations. But the cast do carry it along rather well. From Harrison getting into heated conversations with Carradine which virtually sees a fist to the face, or Billy Dee Williams taking every opportunity to have his artificial claw in plain sight to see as he is the stabiliser/or voice of reason for Harrison's character. Or the competitive friction between Harrison and Sikes which ends in foreseeable fashion. Carver's handling was tough as nails, but he knew what was the production's strongest aspect and really leant on it.

Great b-cast full of chemistry in a well oiled, no frills machine by director Steve Carver (R. I. P). The dirty dozen on the high seas. Actually, it's only half-a-dozen for this outing. A ragtag group of convicts (who are trained divers) are offered a dangerous job, which involves the deepest offshore rig where they'll be diving depths 1000+ ft. And it's just them along with their boss (a potent, no-bull Gregory Harrison). They have only 45 days to complete the job. And a documentary crew (led by Cynthia Sikes) are given full access to the rig. In the hope of drumming up some positive PR. And like how these stories usually play out, we learn the company boss (David Carradine in sly, smarmy form) likes to take short cuts to get the job done. Even risking life's to see it through. So the plot can fall into a predictable pattern, and some heavy dialogue exchanges opens up cliched character building centred mainly upon Harrison's hard-shelled former navy officer character. The action-thrills when it comes are low-scale in execution, thanks to its budget coming off like a TV movie, yet the familiar disaster beats still have high stakes and the locations have authenticity. Sometimes I think the music lets the whole thing down, and somewhat cheapens the suspenseful situations. But the cast do carry it along rather well. From Harrison getting into heated conversations with Carradine which virtually sees a fist to the face, or Billy Dee Williams taking every opportunity to have his artificial claw in plain sight to see as he is the stabiliser/or voice of reason for Harrison's character. Or the competitive friction between Harrison and Sikes which ends in foreseeable fashion. Carver's handling was tough as nails, but he knew what was the production's strongest aspect and really leant on it.

If you know anything about commercial oilfield diving is so bad it is really funny. Everything is completely out of whack but pro-divers will see that David Carradine plays the arch-type Projects Manager who doesn't mind who gets hurt as long as the money rolls in. And a one-armed LSS!! Who dreamed that one up?? As I recall there are some Ocaemeering stickers in the back ground - no wonder their diving division went bust! - not the best advertisement for a global diving company. The divers are all supposed to be graduates from the legendary Chino Prison Commercial Dive School - the course was two years long and some very heavy duty people walked out of the correction facility straight onto construction barges in the Gulf of Mexico and the Middle East. Hopefully none of them were as stupid as the divers portrayed in this hilarious film. None of the ones I met were. I think they should do a re-make

Ben, a former Navy officer now works on a rig as the guy in charge, but since a lot of crew keeps dying whilst diving and planting the rig in the sea he needs men who are willing to take the risk. He gets in touch with an old friend from the Navy who works in a prison as sort of an diving training base and there Ben selects out the best to complete the task, but with superiors breathing down his neck, a camera crew now jumping on board and a deadline to meet he wants to finish the job and make sure the men stay alive, but not all things work out as he plans. A friend said to me that it was a guy movie, yet it's more like a fast forward movie. There aren't any interesting scenes except for fans of Gregory Harrison able to see him in a pair of shorts through out the whole movie, he seems to be the only person able to act out his role properly yet his name doesn't appear as if he has the lead role and yes he is the lead actor in the movie. What everybody else was doing there I don't know because they were just dull to watch. 2 out of 10 if lucky.