But when you’ve got as keen an eye as he does, plus a cache of tough guy performers facing impossible odds, it is extremely effective.

Much of the movie is as blunt as the title suggests, and Kosinski leans into it in the third act. Only the Brave follows the same pattern (“What’s it like to be an elite wildfire squad?”) and only if you know that it’s based on a true story do you realise it isn’t going to end so well. It’s really more of a procedural film – “What’s it like to work at an airport?” – with political dealings, romantic woes, a comic side plot and finally some explosives thrown in at the end.

This unpredictable quality to Only the Brave ends up being its greatest strength.Ī point of comparison would be the 1970 film Airport, which, thanks to its many sequels, suggest wall-to-wall disaster tension to those who haven’t seen it. Furthermore, the “hangin’ out” sequences with the Granite Mountain Hotshots don’t exactly feel cut from a Richard Linklater film, but it’s in a similar ballpark. This isn’t to imply the sequences of mighty conflagrations aren’t heart-pounding, it’s just that there are fewer than you might expect.

Only the brave movie 2017 full movie