Review of Only the Brave (2017) by Rebecca31 — 19 Nov 2017

Here's another "Based on the Incredible True Story" movie so get the tissues ready. I'm getting real sick of all these horrific true story movies that tries its very hardest to reduce you to a blubbering mess by the end of it. After a while they all start to morph into one so while watching Only The Brave I couldn't help but feel like I've seen this exact movie before. Only instead of an oil rig it's a wild fire.

This particular true story biopic focuses on the Granite Mountain Hotshots. A tragic story and although the last ten minutes is perhaps the most intense scene in these based on true events movies I only wish I could say the same for the rest of the film. So formulaic it hurts, squeezing in as many overly sentimental scenes of the main characters and their families as it possibly can. And just in case you're not already crying by the end let's not forget the pictures of the real victims saved for the credits. Before they become certified Hotshots we get to meet them as best mates and after twenty minutes in I stopped counting how many times I was hearing the words dude and bro. Just to further drive home the fact that they're such great friends with the best supervisor ever, enter Josh Brolin. Now let's meet Miles Teller, the outsider, the one with the drug problem and has now just had a daughter. Trying to make himself a better person he joins the team and the bromance continues. It moves from scene to scene in a series of mediocre acting and a badly paced story. With the exception of Teller and Brolin every other firefighter was almost a copy and paste of one another and it reduces any character who isn't a Hotshot into a prop. Overly dramatic and cheesy, if there was a way to tell this story onscreen this certainly wasn't it. I lost interest very early on and only regained it towards the end. Not recommended.