It’s hard not to like them, to empathize with their struggles and take pleasure in their triumphs. The only thing exceptional about them is how unexceptional they are. They’re just guys who drink beers and love their wives, who happened to be engaged in a dangerous profession. We get to know a little bit about a lot of these guys (many of which are played by familiar faces like James Badge Dale, Geoff Stults, and Josh Hopkins). We get to know Christopher MacKenzie (Taylor Kitsch), a good looking guy (in spite of the mustache) who sleeps around a lot, but falls in love with a cute nurse caring for Brendan after a snake bite.
That job ultimately saves Brendan’s life from drugs or jail, or both. We get to know Brendan McDonough (Miles Teller), a junkie turned firefighter, who Chief Marsh takes a chance on when his girlfriend gets pregnant. They struggle with the work-life balance, but they love each other, damnit. We get to know his wife Amanda (Jennifer Connelly), who cares for horses and misses her husband, who spends too much of his life battling fire and not enough time at home. We get to know Chief Eric Marsh (Josh Brolin), about his past struggles with addiction, and how he uses firefighting as a coping mechanism. But chiefly, Only the Brave is about getting to know many of these firefighters intimately. How that is done is actually pretty fascinating, and I learned a lot I didn’t know about that from the movie.
Only the Brave is based on the true story of 20 firefighters in Prescott, Arizona whose mission it was to battle wildfires. It’s a little like the ending to All Quiet on the Western Front, on a larger scale, and there’s definitely some merit to that. Maybe it wouldn’t have affected me so much if I’d known, if I’d expected what was coming. I left Only the Brave feeling angry and sad and hurt and hollow, like I’d lost something dear to me. It’s a well made film from Joseph Kosinski ( Oblivion) about a group of average fire-fighting dude-bros - The Granite Mountain Hot Shots - and there’s some pretty solid performances in this, especially from Josh Brolin and Jeff Bridges.īut here’s where I’m going to spoil this movie for you because I genuinely believe it’s important - if you didn’t know already - that you do understand what happens in this movie. I had read most of a review ( a really good one), but I didn’t pick up what it was putting down. I didn’t know anything about The Granite Mountain Hot Shots going into Only the Brave, and that’s on me.
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