Only The Brave
14/11/17 Filed in: Cinema
We saw this film last Friday. I knew what it was about in general terms but hadn't read anything beforehand and I didn't realise that it was in fact based on a actual events.
It is the story of a group of firefighters. Not your ordinary house fire type of firemen, but those who tackle forest fires. The elite teams in this field are called Hotshots, but the team in this film are 'Type 2s', trainee fighters, although their leader, Eric Marsh (Josh Brolin), aspires for them to become Hotshots. The problem is that they are part of a municipal fire department working for the city of Prescott, Arizona, and no municipal teams have ever become Hotshots. Undaunted, they set out to prove their worth.
Eric is a complicated character, who lives with his wife Amanda (Jennifer Connelly), who herself lives an interesting life rescuing injured horses. While Amanda was on board with Eric's work when they first got together, she is now far less enamoured with it. This leads to tension between them. Meanwhile we have the rest of the crew, all with their own personal stories, although we only share the intimate details of a new recruit, Brendon McDonough (Miles Teller). At the beginning of the film we see Brendon high on drugs and generally not in a good place. But when he finds out his estranged girlfriend is pregnant, and when he then sees the baby, he transforms himself in an attempt to become a good father. Eric takes him on despite the reservations of the rest of the team, who know Brendan's past. But we learn that Eric has quite a lot in common with Brendon, which explains why he is prepared to give the young man a chance to prove himself.
Duane Steinbrink (Jeff Bridges) is a local official of some sort who pulls a few strings to enable the team to be assessed for promotion to Hotshots. They are dispatched to tackle a blaze while being assessed by a venerable old firefighter. Eric, who's known for his irascibility, soon finds himself at odds with the assessor as to the best course of action to take to control the fire. Eric ultimately tells the older man to 'back off', and while the team successfully deal with the fire, Eric believes that he has blown it as far as Hotshots status is concerned. But ability outweighs irascibility and the team achieve their ambition, the first municipal team to gain the Hotshots accolade. They become the Granite Mountain Hotshots.
We follow the teams exploits including rescuing the 200 year-old juniper tree outside town, after which an iconic photograph was taken, which is accurately reproduced in the film. On the personal front, Brendan's rehabilitation with his girlfriend, and his love of their child, is causing him to consider leaving the front line, something that Eric rails at, although Eric himself is coming under increasing pressure from Amanda to do much the same. Both men seem to be moving in this direction at the time of the Yarnell Hill fire. It started as a lightning strike and was regarded as not being serious. But strong winds, the effects of a long-term draught and elevated temperature, combined to turn this into a fire to be reckoned with. As they say, the rest is history. I had at this point remembered reading about a firefighting team in the news a few years ago, and I realised that I probably already knew the ending of this story. This didn't detract, however, from the tension as I watched the events unfold.
The film is of course a drama, and as such there are no doubt some variances from the actual events, but the film rightly does justice to men of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, who well deserve to be identified by the film's title. Critical reviews have been generally good, as have audience reactions.
Duane Steinbrink (Jeff Bridges) is a local official of some sort who pulls a few strings to enable the team to be assessed for promotion to Hotshots. They are dispatched to tackle a blaze while being assessed by a venerable old firefighter. Eric, who's known for his irascibility, soon finds himself at odds with the assessor as to the best course of action to take to control the fire. Eric ultimately tells the older man to 'back off', and while the team successfully deal with the fire, Eric believes that he has blown it as far as Hotshots status is concerned. But ability outweighs irascibility and the team achieve their ambition, the first municipal team to gain the Hotshots accolade. They become the Granite Mountain Hotshots.
We follow the teams exploits including rescuing the 200 year-old juniper tree outside town, after which an iconic photograph was taken, which is accurately reproduced in the film. On the personal front, Brendan's rehabilitation with his girlfriend, and his love of their child, is causing him to consider leaving the front line, something that Eric rails at, although Eric himself is coming under increasing pressure from Amanda to do much the same. Both men seem to be moving in this direction at the time of the Yarnell Hill fire. It started as a lightning strike and was regarded as not being serious. But strong winds, the effects of a long-term draught and elevated temperature, combined to turn this into a fire to be reckoned with. As they say, the rest is history. I had at this point remembered reading about a firefighting team in the news a few years ago, and I realised that I probably already knew the ending of this story. This didn't detract, however, from the tension as I watched the events unfold.
The film is of course a drama, and as such there are no doubt some variances from the actual events, but the film rightly does justice to men of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, who well deserve to be identified by the film's title. Critical reviews have been generally good, as have audience reactions.