ONLY THE BRAVE – A Review by Hollywood Hernandez
Only the Brave is another movie that is based on a true story. This one tells the tale of the brave volunteer firefighters known as The Granite Mountain Hotshots, who risk their lives to protect their remote community.
Josh Brolin (No Country For Old Men) stars are Fire Chief Eric Marsh, a grizzly old man who loves both his job and his men. Miles Teller (Whiplash) is the young new recruit who finds the support he needs in the tight fraternity of firemen. Jennifer Connelly plays Teller's wife, Amanda, who keeps the home fires burning while her husband is out putting fires out.
Only the Brave does an excellent job of showing the danger that the volunteers have to endure and it also shows the bond between the tight group of men who put their lives on the line each day. The movie also goes out of its way to show the stress that the job puts on the men's home life.
The movie is based on an actual incident where 19 firefighters lost their lives defending their small town against a wildfire. Director Joseph Kosinski, who's directed a couple of Tom Cruise's action films, puts you at ground zero of the raging wildfire and, using CGI effects, gives you the incredibly scary feeling that the men must have faced while running to the raging fire instead of away from it. That is an amazing feat of courage.
The movie has many quotable lines. My favorite among them was, "We don't see things as they are; we see things the way that WE are." This movie is a fitting tribute to the brave men who died, from their perspective, doing what they were only thought was right, because it was their job.
Only the Brave runs a little over 2 hours and it's rated PG-13. On my "Hollywood Popcorn Scale" I rate this amazingly inspiring movie a JUMBO.
