Directed by Joseph Kosinki
2017 Biographical Drama
2 hours 13 minutes
From Columbia Pictures
Starring
Josh Brolin
Miles Teller
Jeff Bridges
Jennifer Connelly
Taylor Kitsch
James Badge Dale
Andie MacDowell
Geoff Stultz
Perhaps I should broaden my horizons but I went to this film not knowing much more about it than it has a cast I admire and is about firefighting. I didn't even know it was a true story. I sheepishly tell you this because if you also don't know more about it than I did and you plan to see it, then my advice is to keep it that way. Be surprised. It will certainly be a more profound movie-going experience.
Hotshots are front-line firefighters and this is about the Granite Mountain Hotshots, founded in 2002, as part of the Prescott (Arizona) Fire Department. It is the oldest fire department in Arizona. The city of Prescott could actually be considered a costar of the film although it was filmed entirely in New Mexico.
I expected I would be thrilled at the fire sequences and I was. I also thought I might possibly find the backstory, the story of the personal lives of the firefighters and their wives and girlfriends to be Hollywood tedium. I am so glad I was wrong there. Those segments were well-done and it is absolutely crucial that we learn a thing or two about these men.
The team is hiring new members as the film opens. Josh Brolin is running the immediate show. He has a few government people who find him a little too much the maverick but he has the ear and support of fire chief, Jeff Bridges.
We, the audience, and the new and old team are put through firefighting boot camp, something I wouldn't have been capable of managing in the best of times but whose participants I now acknowledge, appreciate and honor like no time ever. I thought of the raging fires throughout California these past weeks as I watched this film which made it all the more real.
The film is sequenced in a way that there is some training mixed in with some personal and then some firefighting mixed in with some personal. Each fire sequence was based on a real event and each event in written on the screen. When it came to the last fire in the film and I heard the name of it and saw it written, I realized then that I knew the story of the Granite Mountain Hotshots and I was galvanized.
Brolin, who has a great capacity for playing villains, has a star turn in a heroic role. He's tough and smart and caring or in other words, a true leader.
Jennifer Connelly is spot-on as Brolin's wife, a woman who early on made an agreement with her husband to not have children and now is in the throes of changing her mind. Her role is essentially the wife who lives with the distress of being married to a man who any day may not return from his job. The best acting of the film belongs to her.
Every team needs a rebel and Miles Teller signed on for that one. Long in trouble with the law and having just discovered his ex is having his baby, hiring on as one of the hotshots is tantamount to throwing this kid a life-preserver. Of course he figures prominently in pieces of the film's high drama.
Taylor Kitsch is watchable as Teller's chief antagonist who soon becomes his best friend and James Badge Dales brings it on as Brolin's right-hand man.
Bridges isn't given a lot to do or much of a chance to especially shine but he adds an air of confidence in his role. It was nice seeing him so cleaned up and spiffed out for this role. I guess the Prescott Fire Department chief can't have long, unkempt hair and a scraggly beard. I just know you'll be happy to hear he again gets to sing in a movie.
With less attention paid, this could have turned out to be a cheesy disaster movie but director Kosinki, who has thus far only directed two theatrical features (2010's Tron: Legacy and 2013's Oblivion), kept it all on track. It looks like a one helluva lot of work went into it. I'll presume not one actor got singed, but boy oh boy does it all look real. Obviously Claudio Miranda's crack cinematography and Joseph Trapenese's scene-by-scene-appropriate music enriched the overall effect.
I have written some reviews here and kvetched about the dumbass titles, especially with respect to how they won't help sell the movie. Well, scratch all that for now. There couldn't have been a more appropriate title for this one... Only the Brave certainly covers it. The film not only informs but is oh so entertaining.
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The Directors
I'm looking forward to seeing this movie since my brother was involved with the smoke jumpers in Idaho & with logistics/support in Alaska. I know he plans to see this movie & hopes it honors these Hot Shots.
ReplyDeleteBob, your review comments are spot on. My wife and I thoroughly enjoyed the film both from the standpoint of the subject matter, and how the director told the story.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who fought fire for several years (as an initial attack firefighter, a member of type 2 handcrews and helitack crews, and as a member of a hotshot crew), I was impressed with how generally true-to-life the scenes were. If the smell of smoke, driptorch mix, aviation fuel and chainsaw gas could be piped into the theater and the room temperature raised into triple digits, one could almost think they were on the fireline.
Of course the plot was "Hollywoodized" to add drama, and there were minor technical/ terminology issues that firefighters would pick up on, but nothing glaring that takes away from the movie.
Besides being the only municipal Hotshot (Type 1) crew in the country, the Granite Mountain Hotshots stood out in 2013 as being an all-male crew (which while once commonplace in the 21st century is very much an anomaly). Of course no one really knows why the decision to leave the black to hike through unburned fuel to another safety zone was made. That's one element of the tragedy that makes the story compelling today.
Andy, so nice you liked the review and I thoroughly enjoyed your informative comments. Great hearing from you. Glad you're still on board here.
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