- Directed by J. Lee Thompson
- November 21, 1986 (US)
A pair of down-on-their-luck treasure hunters team up with a psychic possessing a map to an ancient treasure.
What we get with Firewalker is an action-comedy starring Chuck Norris as Max Donigan and Louis Gossett Jr. as his pal Leo Porter with Melody Anderson as Patricia Goodwin playing the part of the woman that hires them. Norris and Gossett were both at their height of popularity during the ‘80s. Here they are playing treasure hunting friends who are less successful than they would like to be.
Norris and Gossett have great chemistry as they play old friends. Donigan is the one that inspires Porter to go along against his better judgment. They make a great pair and it comes off as a reluctant friendship. Patricia is the damsel in distress and the romantic interest for Donigan. Why Porter didn’t get one I don’t know. It would not have been unthinkable in the ‘80s. It was ill fitting overall. A platonic relationship would have worked best.
There’s no pretense of depth or edginess and most of it, though not all, of it is pretty much for the entire family. One or two lines removed would make it quite clean. Made in the days when the Indiana Jones films were hot and quite the big deal. This plays on that but saves on budget by having a smaller cast and keeping it in the present day. Still nothing is wrong there. It just seems rushed in some points or that it missed some things in the story elsewhere.
There was real potential in Firewalker to be something fun and comedic but it just kind of fell apart the longer it went on. It dumped things in with no explanation or a poor payoff if they had one at all. Conversely it is fun. It’s silly and doesn’t take itself too seriously ever. The chemistry between the main trio works well.
This adventure is spurred when Patricia Goodwin, who may or may not have some psychic powers, comes to the most run down and dangerous bar she can find to get a couple of people to help her follow a map to treasure. The importance of her psychic powers comes and goes. She offers up some glimpses connected to the hunt and the map yet they don’t help her out in any way or even aid the team. They just get across so many hurtles of why she’s after this treasure and then largely disappear from the film only to get brought up (maybe) again.
Following close behind is El Coyote (Sonny Landham) that pursues the trio for…reasons. Is he after the treasure? Sure seems like it until it doesn’t. He has a level of access to it. Is he after the golden dagger for mystical reasons? Sort of. Is he after Patricia? That is a little more solid but still murky. It looks like he plans on killing her to get the powers of the Firewalker so he can travel to the sun and stroll there (that’s the power) though why he needed to lure her all the way to the treasure instead of kidnapping her is never explained.
Is El Coyote working alone or does he have help? The first bit of trouble our trio has seems to be at the hands of people working for El Coyote. Maybe even a cult he controls. By the end it looks like he is doing all himself. Which is it? No explanation. Was something else going on and it got lost because of edits to the script?
Another unexplained thing is the aforementioned golden dagger. It contains Aztec, Mayan, and Conquistador images on it hinting at an unexpected connection. Why are three different groups on one very old ceremonial dagger? Never explained and it’s not even really important to the story. So many things fall apart when you take a moment to consider them as the movie tries to inundate you with adventure.
If you don’t think too hard about Firewalker, you’ll have a very good time. If you think a little bit about it you might find some irritation, but it is when you get engaged you get upset because things that look like they might prove interesting are abandoned. I enjoyed myself but I can see the flaws. I’m left feeling that things were either not thought through or left on the cutting room floor.
John Rhys-Davies appears pointlessly as ‘Corky’ Taylor who is an old buddy of Donigan’s. The character exists to get them out of a scrape but does nothing for the larger story, which is a shame given that Rhys-Davies was and still is a very good character actor. Further still he is sporting some accent though it is all over the place. Not sure of he is British or Australian or Southern.
Intentionally or not the excessive use of sets for caves and handful of other locations helps drive home that old school adventure feel that inspired Indiana Jones which inspired this. It highlights the fantasy and the escapist aspect they were clearly going for.
Firewalker is almost a very good movie for what it aims to be. It just has some questions in the script that never get answered. Not a lost cause but close.
