Fireproof

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

A 2008 film produced by Samuel Goldwyn Films and Sherwood Pictures and starring Kirk Cameron as Caleb Holt, a fireman whose marriage to his wife Catherine is in trouble, but overcomes his problems by a combination of the "The Love Dare", a 40 day program, and through God.


Tropes used in Fireproof include:


  • Anonymous Benefactor: Played with. Caleb didn't give the money to buy the medical equipment with any stipulation of secrecy, but Catherine's assumption that it was Dr. Keller means that she doesn't even check with the company to see who gave the money before running off to show her gratitude.
  • Big Damn Heroes: Arguably, the passersby who help move the wrecked car off of the train tracks along with the firemen.
  • Break the Haughty: To show the Small Name, Big Ego type of the fire department he's not as cool as he thinks he is, Caleb has a hot sauce drinking contest with him.Caleb replaced the hot sauce in his with tomato juice.
  • Chekhov's Gun: Caleb's savings for his boat, mentioned during his first argument scene with Catherine, are later used to buy his mother-in-law's home medical equipment.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: Caleb's mother, who he's been castigating for most of the movie, turns out to be the one who first gave his father the "Love Dare" book that saved their marriage, and which helps to save Caleb's as well.
  • Computer Equals Monitor: Looks to be the case when Caleb goes after the monitor with a baseball bat in order to combat his internet pornography addiction. He quickly follows it up with smashing up the tower as well (well, the case at least. The one shot we get of the computer in the trash looks like most of the hardware is still intact).
  • Cutting the Electronic Leash: In this case, throwing the computer out the door and beating it with a baseball bat. It needed to be done.
  • Earn Your Happy Ending: Caleb has to actually work and follow the instructions in "The Love Dare" in order to achieve this.
  • Father, I Want to Marry My Brother : Done very sweetly by the daughter in the opening of the film.
  • Hilarious Outtakes: It's a mixture of people forgetting lines, goofs onstage, and a lot of pranks that got filmed.
  • Hollywood Fire: Largely averted. Not that much of the house is on fire and it clearly shows the amount of smoke involved. Still, the fact that the section underneath the house is completely intact except for dramatic falling rubble...
  • Jerkass:
    • Caleb, at first.
    • Catherine can come across this way just as badly as, if not worse than, Caleb.
  • Kissing Discretion Shot: An odd one. Kirk Cameron refuses to kiss any woman but his wife, so for the scene where Caleb and Catherine kiss, Kirk's wife was substituted for the regular actress and the lighting was turned down to make it more difficult to tell the difference.
  • The Moral Substitute: Claimed by critics to be the reason why the movie was such a success despite their panning.
  • Product Placement: Yes, they sell the book of "The Love Dare".
    • And Chick-fil-A, too!
  • Railroad Tracks of Doom: Unlike Hollywood Fire, this one is played straight.
  • Running Gag: Caleb giving up something, then taking it out into the yard to wail on it with a baseball bat, then getting noticed by his elderly neighbors. He gives a cheerful greeting, and the neighbor gives a suspicious "Caleb."
  • Sassy Black Woman: A duo of them unintentionally undermine Caleb's attempts to win back his wife by regaling her with tales of friends of theirs who had the same tactics used on them to soften them off for the divorce.
  • Tomato Surprise: When Caleb first confides to his father that Catherine wants to leave him, Dad Holt challenges him to fulfill the conditions of "The Love Dare," pointing out that it aided greatly in his own marriage to Caleb's mother when they had hit a rough patch. Near the end, we learn that it was Dad Holt who had wanted to leave Mom Holt and not the other way around as Caleb had initially assumed; this prompts Caleb to go and apologize to his mother for having been a Jerkass to her throughout the movie.
  • The Unfair Sex: One of the greatest problems of the movie. While Caleb was kind of a Jerkass and had problems, both personal and in the marriage, he's shown as the only one who had to fight for the marriage, even when its shown that Catherine was equally wrong in many of her arguments and she's not shown to have changed. When in marriage, one and only one of the spouses is wrong and must do whatever it takes to heal the marriage, since it's their responsibility.
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