What a blast! Director Paul Greengrass (he of the shaky camera) has revived the 1970s disaster movie – and how! I’m not a huge fan of Matthew McConaughey (Interstellar, 2014) but he puts in a terrific shift as an ordinary joe. But you’re going to have to hurry to catch this in cinemas – where it absolutely belongs – because it hits the streamer on Oct 3. And without doubt Apple has made a major blunder in not sticking a huge wodge of dough behind the cinematic release and finding a few Imax screens. The special effects won’t have anything like the required impact on the small screen.
It’s generally considered that The Towering Inferno (1974) was the biggest of the disaster cycle at the box office because it paired superstars Paul Newman and Steve McQueen. But, actually, the real reason was fire. Any other disaster – cyclone, tsunami – doesn’t just spring out of nowhere. No matter that these are natural disasters, they do follow a largely designated path and through for cinematic purposes twisters can shift around a bit, generally they are not going to switch direction dramatically.
Fire is a primal fear. Smoke itself is bad enough, it can suffocate you in an instant, but fire will just rip through you and destroy everything in its path. And of all the terrible aspects of nature, it’s the most horrific visually – the thick clouds of smoke rising ominously and the red red – bad enough in the distance but close-up looking like some mad archer has unleashed a thousand bolts in a hundred different directions all at once. Backdraft (1991), by comparison, largely dealt with containable fires rather than wildfire.
This doesn’t follow the usual template of sticking a bunch of disparate people in jeopardy and allowing character exposition to suck up a good chunk of the running time. Instead, almost documentary style, we follow harassed fire chief Martinez (Yul Vazquez) as he sets about the impossible task of getting enough waterpower up into the mountains to quell the flames and in the end decides to switch off the hoses and concentrate on getting 30,000 people to safety. There’s an interesting amount of detail on the strategy of containing a fire, but mostly you can see that once the fire takes hold they are fighting a losing battle. We don’t learn a single thing about the personal life of Martinez or any other fireman, so it’s action, action, action.
School bus driver Kevin McKay (Mathew McConaughey) isn’t exactly loaded down with trauma, but he does have an ailing mother and a disaffected son, Shaun (Levi McConaughey), whose unexplained illness can be treated by over-the-counter medicine so he’s not on the point of death. Kevin has clearly relied too much in the past on his charm to get him out of sticky situations and here he’s trying to wheedle his way round boss Ruby (Ashlie Atkinson) whose giving him a hard time for his lack of attention to managing his vehicle.
But he doesn’t really come into the story until he’s given the job of rescuing a bunch of stranded schoolkids who, thankfully, don’t have any back stories either and we’re e not having to worry about kids who’ll die without expert care. And they come with eminently sensible teacher Mary (America Ferrara), who, despite the immediate threat of fire, has them line up in twos to board the bus. Mostly, the kids contribute a soundtrack of squealing while Mary spends her time calming them down and acting as navigator.
Eventually, Kevin finds himself stranded in the heart of the fire, but that looks like the best place to be, like the calm at the heart of a storm, until it doesn’t.
It’s a heck of a terrifying ride and I found myself gripping my seat on occasions. Of course, I knew they’d get out, nobody’s going to barbecue a bunch of small kids on screen, but Kevin’s maneuvers and the storm of flame all round was a very scary experience.
Apparently, this is based on a true story and there’s some unnecessary virtue-signalling at the end when it turns out the fire wasn’t caused by a careless camper but by a careless energy company which was fined billions.
McConaughey is superb. He’s flustered throughout, initially by domestic issues, and then by the task. For the most part he looks worn down to the bone and it’s not heroics but sheet determination that gets him through. And the director avoids the temptation of trying to add romance into the equation. America Ferrara (Dumb Money, 2023) is pretty good, too, as the nit-picking schoolteacher and Yul Vazquez (Tin Soldier, 2025), a new name to me, certainly lends strength to his role. But this picture belongs to Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Ultimatum, 2007), shouldering a disaster tour de force. Screenplay by the director, Brad Inglesby (Mare of Easttown, 2021) and Lizzie Johnson in her debut.
Catch it before it hits streaming.
The Magnificent 60s 