Wild, untamed women. A man pushed to the limit. A wildfire threatening to destroy them.

Will love and romance prevail in this hothouse forest?

By Jason Hink

It’s almost Thanksgiving here at the Movies and Drinks offices, a time when stacks of Imagicomm Entertainment and Mill Creek DVDs fill the conference room table for holiday viewing. And while it’s not specifically a Thanksgiving (or holiday) movie, the Canadian-shot action-adventure-romance flick Romance in the Wilds, a cable TV film from Brain Power Studio and INSP Films that aired on UPtv back in September 2021, is a fun way to spend 84 minutes in mixed company with the relatives. Starring Kaitlyn Leeb, Victor Zinck Jr., Melinda Shankar, Kate Vernon, and Laura Vandervoort, Romance in the Wilds is quick, exciting, and inoffensive (though your wine aunt may sneer at how attractive all the ladies are in this movie).

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It’s all out, balls-to-the-wall action from the get-go when retired veteran-turned-Forest Ranger Buck Thompson (Victor Zinck Jr.) meets up with filthy-rich industrialist Martin Lamont (Brian Cook) to show him around his newly-acquired mining site on the forest. It’s clear to Buck that the billionaire’s project manager (Stanley Garson) has made some miscalculations, and the job site needs to move its location. Big mistake. Incompetence leads to mishap (and spilled gasoline), setting up the forest for major disaster.

When black clouds are spotted in the sky, the thunder rolls and the lightning strikes (just like the song says), and that’s a worrisome cause for Buck’s cousin, the attractive Amara (Melinda Shankar), who’s perched high above the forest in a lookout scanning for fire (she works for the Forest Service, too). Spotting the lightning strikes and smoke, she alerts Buck that danger is on the way.

Meanwhile, living in a cabin in the woods is a working geologist, the attractive Jessica (Kaitlyn Leeb), who reports back via video call to her attractive boss (Vanessa Sears) that she’s about to be displaced because the land the cabin is on now belongs to Lamont’s company, and he is forcing her out. But before Jessica is displaced by the billionaire, she’s paid a visit by Buck, who tells her she’s about to be displaced—permanently—if she doesn’t exit immediately…because a wildfire is now threatening the cabin.

Jessica and Buck scramble to gather up her important belongings, including her snowy-white pooch Charlie (played by Ice the dog), and exit the premises. But the adventure has just begun. Sparks fly immediately between Buck and Jessica as she haul-asses around dirt-road corners in her topless Jeep, arguing with the Forest Ranger about where to go and how reckless she should drive to get there. And sparks aren’t the only things flying; fire, debris, and trees are also flying, putting an end to their drive, forcing them to continue their escape from the forest on foot, braving dangerous wildfire, deathly smoke, and other forest dangers—like a giant bear that’s tracking them through the forest.

Cut off from communication due to damage done to the cell phone towers, Buck’s cousin Amara enlists the rest of the family to help, including Buck’s attractive mother, Janine (Kate Vernon), a retired Forest Service worker herself; and sexy pilot Roma (Laura Vandervoort), Buck’s sister, who takes to the air in an attempt to locate her lost brother and his new geologist friend before that hungry bear (or the wildfire) does.

For a cable TV quickie in the Hallmark/Lifetime mold, Romance in the Wilds reminds me of the more action-oriented TV movies that used to air on basic cable back in the ’90s. The movie gets the backstory out of the way quickly and jets into the action, never letting up until the end (credit to screenwriter James Foti for the lean script). The result isn’t memorable (you’ve seen story on screen a million times), but it’s perfect popcorn viewing, and at less than 90 minutes, it doesn’t overstay its welcome. (In fact, most of these movies that aired on UPtv run about 84 minutes; I wish more modern theatrical films did, too).

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The leads are attractive, with handsome Victor Zinck Jr.’s understated performance (as a war veteran, he suffers from PTSD flashbacks) a nice touch in a genre that often goes over the top with its cheesy characterizations (credit to director Justin G. Dyck). And between Kaitlyn Leeb, Melinda Shankar, Kate Vernon, and Laura Vandervoort, I haven’t seen this many attractive pilots (Amara is a helicopter pilot, too!) and women-of-action since I reviewed a series of Andy Sidaris action movies from the ’80s and ’90s! Leeb is convincing as the female lead, her strong, tough-as-nails reactions to the danger her Jessica encounters with Buck are fun to watch…while Vernon’s portrayal as the brood’s matriarch will appeal to mothers and grandmothers in the viewing audience. Vandervoort, probably best known to US audiences for portraying Supergirl in The CW’s Smallville, is pure sex appeal, piloting the plane on her search mission with cool steeliness, as if saying to the viewer, “we got this; you’re gonna be alright.

Not only are the leads nice to look at, the action and effects are rendered competently, especially for a low-budget, niche cable TV affair like Romance in the Wilds. The CGI smoke, the explosions (an early explosion of a seaplane is well done), the dirt-road Jeep drive, the stalking bear—all serve to lend the film an exciting action-movie feel that isn’t easy to pull off.

Speaking of wildfires, they are a constant problem where I live here in the Pacific Northwest. In my work as a local news journalist, summer is my least favorite time of year to work (even if summer is my favorite season overall!). Wildfires inevitably kick up during the dangerous “fire season” and Romance in the Wilds reminds me of those long summer months of constant wildfire and evacuation updates (my aunt lost her home in a wildfire a couple years ago, and my own home was placed under Level 1 evacuation a few years back—the first time I felt what it’s like to be in the crosshairs of one of these blazes).

From what I can gather online, Romance in the Wilds first aired on cable network UPtv in September 2021. A few months later, the Fox News Channel’s website advertised “new original Christmas movies airing on Fox Nation this Thanksgiving,” with Romance in the Wilds and its sequel, Christmas in the Wilds, among the listed films. Fox Nation, the streaming sister network of Fox News Channel, had touted original holiday programming the previous year when it premiered Christmas in the Rockies in 2020.

But you don’t need to be under constant threat of wildfire to enjoy Romance in the Wilds. In the end, of course, it’s a romantic adventure, complete with the will-they-or-won’t-they tropes you expect from such a film. But the journey to get there is what makes Romance in the Wilds perfect viewing for the holidays, something you can put on to pass the time while the family waits for the turkey and sweet potato casserole to finish cooking.

Jason Hink is a writer, editor and content producer. Sign up for his Email Newsletter here. For more of Jason’s reviews, visit here.