Joseph Kosinski, the intensely visual director of Tron: Legacy and Oblivion, is great with the disastrous fire sequences and the hellish third act. The situation roils Eric, and it involves mayors, taxes, and upper echelons of fire management experts (which is where Jeff Bridges fits into the story, seeming almost a caricature of himself, toting a badge and a guitar). Additionally, more explanation might have helped our understanding of the politics and negotiations underway to make the local Prescott, Ariz., wildfire crew eligible to be deemed hotshots. Although a real sense of the details of the job is conveyed, a little more explanation for the laypersons in the audience might have been warranted. Scenes of hazing and general group camaraderie are interspersed with scenes of training and actual firefighting.
Eric spots and hires on as a new recruit the former junkie Brendan McDonough (Teller), who has decided to get clean after becoming a father. Although evenhanded with his men, Eric has a propensity for bucking authority, as well as some issues from his past that are causing tension with his wife Amanda (Connelly, who more than holds her own in this male-dominated story). Josh Brolin has rarely been better than in this role as the team’s leader, Eric Marsh.
It’s a story about rugged but ordinary men who gear up to fight an unquenchable beast, and then go out again and do it all over the next day, as well as the day after that. The profession of firefighting is shown for the hard, heroic work that it is in Only the Brave, which is based on the true story of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, 19 of whom died fighting the Yarnell Hill fire in Arizona in 2013, one of the country’s deadliest wildfires on record.
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