Only the Brave *** (2017, Josh Brolin, Miles Teller, Jeff Bridges) – Movie Review

Josh Brolin stars as Eric Marsh, the head of the Prescott, Arizona, Fire Department who gets approval from the Mayor to organise a Hotshot front line forest fire fighting crew in 2007. He recruits and trains a bunch of eager newbies, including the mess-up Brendan McDonough (Miles Teller), who turns up begging for work to redeem himself.

They pass with flying colours and are eventually  officially recognised – trainees no more – and Marsh calls them the Granite Mountain Hotshots. If getting recruited was hard, and training was harder, life is going to get a lot harder in the battle of man against fire.

This tale of the men who tame wildfires starts in a familiar gung-ho kind of way, with a parade of the usual recruits and training movie cliches, dating from way before An Officer and a Gentleman or The Magnificent Seven. This part of the film pleasant, and well acted, though nothing remarkable. It gives you no clue as to what’s in store. Later, though, the film does become special, when the men start tackling the terrifying forest fires in a spirit of warm brotherhood.

[Spoiler alert] Finally, however, disaster strikes, as you know it must with the bereavement warning at the start of the movie, and its internet-stated themes of natural disaster, tragedy and the loss of a loved one. But unless you know the true story, what happens may come as a huge and unpleasant surprise.

Eventually, it turns out that the whole of this movie is all meant as a tribute to the valiant men who lost their lives in 2013 with the notorious Yarnell Hill Fire. And that is good, right and proper. It is a well-placed, respectful tribute to these men. But this terribly sad, awful tragic story is a huge downer. There is no way round this. It a hard to watch the movie towards the end, and it leaves behind a sour after-taste of mankind’s helplessness against the elements, no matter how brave or ingenious we are.

Brolin is very, very good, a solid granite rock, exuding honour, caring and human warmth. It must be hard to play this without it becoming corny or stereotypical, but Brolin makes it real and particular and special. He’s the go-to man for being next to you on the plane if there’s a bit of bother. Teller is solid as the film’s young hero, though he moves from mess-up to step-up a bit too fast and a bit unconvincingly.

Jeff Bridges is okay, though a bit ripe and hammy as the town’s canny old fire fighter elder statesman Duane Steinbrink. Jennifer Connelly is nice and tough and angry as Eric’s wife Amanda Marsh, James Badge Dale is good as Eric’s deputy Jesse Steed, and Taylor Kitsch does real well as fireman Christopher MacKenzie, who starts abusing Brendan, then ends up living with him and loving him – in a very straight manly buddy kind of way, that is. Andie MacDowell is completely chucked away as Duane’s wife in a nothing role with virtually no lines.

It is written by Ken Nolan and Eric Warren Singer, based on the GQ article No Exit by Sean Flynn. Turning a factual article into a viable movie is hard, so this must be judged a decent job. It also looks good, and the CGI fires are remarkably well done, and that’s hard to make it look right.

All in all, this is a better movie than expected, and it’s people friendly, packed with dialogue and individual characters, and about something – a dying breed of movie.

It is efficiently directed Joseph Kosinski, the maker of Tron: Legacy and Oblivion.

It cost $ 38 million and grossed $ 17 million in its target audience of North America.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Movie Review

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