Only the Brave is very upfront about what it is: a movie
about manly men doing manly things. That observation is not to undermine the
bravery and skill required for what the Granite Mountain Hotshots did, which
was fighting raging fires around the country, for hours and days at a time,
saving people and towns from destruction. And it’s also not to diminish the sacrifice
these men made, which you can tell is coming but still guts you. But while Only
the Brave is a well-acted and well-made film, the testosterone with which it
defines itself is almost overwhelming.
All you need to do is look at this cast, and you’ll
understand the vibe here: Josh Brolin, Jeff Bridges, Miles Teller, James Badge
Dale, Taylor Kitsch. They’ve played federal agents, police officers, gun
runners, military men, all those super-masculine roles that are so often
portrayed in film. Sometimes it even feels like Only the Brave is on a personal
quest to one-up itself with every scene of the men together: They drink
Budweiser and do whiskey shots; they perform tricks with their chainsaws; they
ride horses and hang out in the desert.
Oh, and they also rush
into the front lines of fires. The film, which is based on the article “No
Exit” published in GQ by journalist Sean Flynn, follows a municipal
firefighting crew from Prescott, Arizona, who aspire to be hotshots, federally
funded firefighters who travel around the country engaging with fires on the
front lines. They speak disparagingly of the “structure” side of firefighting—which
involves protecting buildings instead of using manpower to contain and fight
the fire—and pride themselves on the danger and knowledge required for their job.
Only the Brave excels with its character development,
which lets these men stand on their own individually and then come together when
they get the call to report to yet another disastrous fire.
The most attention is paid to Marsh and Brendan, who is nicknamed “Donut,” and
their relationship is effectively built: The fatherless Donut is honored by the
expectations Marsh places upon him, and in the young man, the superintendent
sees a shadow of his former self. Their bond is believable and engrossing, and
the gruff Brolin and sensitive Teller have good chemistry.
What is infuriating, then, is how much the movie
underserves its few female characters: The mother of Donut’s daughter comes
around every so often to complain about something or another, and while
Connelly has the most screentime, her storyline is eventually simplified into
motherhood, too. Only the Brave has endless interest and patience in its male
characters, but little interest in the women it shows loving them.
Still, director Joseph Kosinski has a good visual eye: The
movie opens with an inferno-like nightmare that haunts the rest of the film,
and there are many overhead shots that capture the scale of the fires and the
wildness of the Arizona landscape in which these men live. Plus, the firefighting
scenes themselves are well-designed, helping viewers to understand the chaos of
those situations and the control the Granite Mountain Hotshots brought to their
job. With that foundation of clear visual storytelling in place, Kosinski
effectively makes the final sequence of the film so captivating and so
terrifying.
With all those strong elements in mind, the film’s missed
opportunities are even more glaring. It’s not only the underwritten female
characters, but also how the film ends in a somewhat anticlimactic way—what was
the future of the Granite Mountain Hotshots? Only the Brave excels as an
examination of a group of men and their interpersonal dynamics, but when it
deviates away from rightfully honoring these men, it falters.
