The film’s screenplay appears to be leading the heroes in one direction, only to go another route entirely, just like many of the wildfires they fight. If you don’t know the real story, Only The Brave might surprise you. Meanwhile, the fires that The Granite Mountain Hotshots are tackling keep getting bigger and bigger, and if you know the real story behind Only The Brave, you’ll know that they’re building to something huge and devastating. Brendan is battling substance abuse and striving to redeem himself after the birth of his daughter, and although the rest of the team considers Brendan a lost cause, Eric keeps pushing him to succeed. Josh Brolin leads the cast and firefighter crew as Eric Marsh, a man who takes a very big chance on Brendan McDonough, played by Miles Teller. Play Those performances are also worthy of praise. Meanwhile, the lives of 'The Granite Mountain Hotshots' are depicted with similar gravitas, creating painterly images for the actors to move through, and lifting their performances up without (usually) being too distracting.

Only The Brave features haunting photography that captures the destructive majesty of flames and their impact on the rest of nature. Joseph Kosinski has taken a break from directing heady sci-fi like Tron: Legacy and Oblivion to make a very realistic drama about very relatable, human events, but he has successfully transported his stark visual style to this material. There is nothing about what they do that isn’t admirable and dangerous as hell. Their job is to get out ahead of dangerous wildfires and prevent them from getting worse, from spreading to nearby communities, and damaging natural wonders. That bet pays off big time in Only The Brave, a handsome and gorgeously photographed, fact-based drama starring Josh Brolin, Miles Teller, Taylor Kitsch and James Badge Dale as firefighters who specialize in wildfires.

Only the brave movie pictures