FIRE IN THE SKY

   Film (1993). Paramount. Dir Robert Lieberman, screenplay Tracy Torme based on The Walton Experience by Travis Walton, starring D.B. Sweeney, Robert Patrick, Craig Sheffer and James Garner. 109 mins. Colour.

   Based on a supposedly non-fictional account of the abduction by aliens of one member of a six-man forest-clearing team in Arizona, the film concentrates on local suspicions that the other five may have murdered him, and the inability of anyone to believe their fantastic story. When the kidnapped man is found a week later, naked and traumatised, it is now generally believed that a hoax has taken place. A lie-detector test proves inconclusive. However, by showing staccato flash-back memories of the partly-amnesiac victim, the film removes any ambiguity: aliens were indeed involved, we are given to believe. The flash-back scenes set on the alien spacecraft are well achieved, and in their way as good as those in COMMUNION (1989), an earlier abduction movie of which this is a sort ofblue-collar reprise. The film's low-key documentary style gives an impression of honesty, despite the implausibility of the basic premise.

   PN