There is no surprise ending to give away with βOnly the Brave,β the film about the deadly 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire in Prescott.
The headlines on June 30, 2013, spelled it out: 19 Granite Mountain Hotshots firefighters died in the blaze, the biggest loss of firefighters since 9/11. Only one survived.
Which is why the movie builds slowly to the inevitable, taking us on a journey into the characters who make up this crew of elite firefighters risking their lives every time they get the call.
The story is centered on recruit Brendan βDonutβ McDonough (Miles Teller), a directionless pothead who wants to turn his life around after getting his girlfriend pregnant. Fire supervisor Eric βSupeβ Marsh (Josh Brolin) gives him the shot at redemption, hiring him after McDonough confesses heβs done drugs and served time in jail.
Marsh immediately tests his new charge with a run up a mountain. After sucking in air and throwing up as he struggles to keep up with the rest of the crew, McDonough earns their respect by completing the run and returning with a selfie taken from the mountaintop.
The movie, directed by Joseph Kosinski (βTron: Legacy,β βOblivionβ) and based on Sean Flynnβs GQ article βNo Exit: The Granite Mountain Yarnell Fire Investigation,β takes us through the rigors of elite firefighting as Marsh, a man who knows more about fighting wildland fires than anyone in his sphere, drives his men to achieve the hotshots classification. We see them doing pushups as exercise and as punishment when McDonough canβt remember the codes that will save their lives. They run up mountains with full packs and picks and shovels to dig a defense line to starve a growing brush fire.
If this was all that Kosinski focused on, βOnly the Braveβ would feel more like a documentary than a dramatic retelling of a tragedy that hits particularly close to home for Arizona and Tucson; one of the Granite Mountain Hotshots killed was William βBillyβ Warneke of Marana.
Instead, Kosinski takes us into the bedrooms and living rooms, corner country bars and family picnics. We see how hard it is being a firefighterβs spouse through Marshβs wife, Amanda (Jennifer Connelly), a veterinarian who rescues horses as a way to keep her mind off her husbandβs singular focus: saving his world one fire at a time. When she meets McDonough, she tells him he and her husband are more similar than he thinks, hinting at Marshβs own addiction history and redemption.
The firefighters lean on each other outside the firehouse, forming a strong bond of brotherhood. When Chris MacKenzie (Taylor Kitsch) tells McDonough that he is sleeping in his car after finding his girlfriend cheating on him, McDonough invites him to stay with him. And when McDonough gets bit by a snake while fighting a wildfire, MacKenzie spends the night in the hospital in a chair next to his bed.
One of the characters in the film that we donβt come to understand is the fire, brilliant and loud and entirely unpredictable, especially when it was devouring Yarnell Hill. As Marsh and the crew knock down trees and brush to create a barrier between the fire and more fuel, McDonough, still recovering from the snake bite, is dispatched to a rocky hill in the distance to monitor the wind and the fireβs direction.
But the fire quickly storms toward McDonoughβs perch, forcing him to flee back to town. Sitting in the back of a Granite Mountain buggy, he listens to the radio as Marsh, calm at first, then sounding more desperate, tells the base commanders the crew is preparing to get in their shelters. You can almost feel McDonoughβs heart pound with fear and terror as the scene plays out and he realizes his brothers are trapped in the middle of the fire.
Kosinski has taken pains to create a visually stunning film and compelling story that honors the men who died on Yarnell Hill and the families they left behind.
He also makes sure that we meet the real firefighters, so the closing credits feature a slide show of those men next to the actors who portrayed them.
