Product: Hellfighters [VHS] (1968)
Rating: 2.0
Not a Very Good John Wayne Role
Well, Mr. Wayne, you would have done better to make an hour-long TV special about the real Red Adair instead of this "tribute" which is a fiction that comes off as pretty darn boring. The only really exciting part was when the team simultaneously put out three oil well fires set by revolutionaries while snipers were trying to stop them. I think that was in Venezuela.There is a love interest with minor complications. Chance Buckman (Wayne) was married, but his wife (Vera Miles) left him 20 years ago because she couldn't take the worry. I'm afraid I'd just call her cowardly and forget her. But she has a daughter (beautiful, of course, played by Katherine Ross) who decides it's time to look up old dad, and promptly falls in love with his assistant Greg (Jim Hutton). Not much tension there, but mama does eventually go back to papa.Most of the movie is scenes of putting out well fires. They get very dirty, and of course there is risk, but basically, you've seen one, you've seen them all. Through this, we're supposed to feel sympathy for the oil well owners who are (sob) losing money while the fire burns. Break my heart, guys.