Only the Brave | Little White Lies

Only the Brave

08 Nov 2017 / Released: 10 Nov 2017

Words by Elena Lazic

Directed by Joseph Kosinski

Starring Josh Brolin, Miles Teller, and Taylor Kitsch

Two firefighters in yellow protective gear standing in a wooded area with fog.
Two firefighters in yellow protective gear standing in a wooded area with fog.
3

Anticipation.

Perhaps this seeming display of masculinity will provide a few laughs?

2

Enjoyment.

Long, tedious and not much fun at all. The ending is good though.

2

In Retrospect.

Where’s Peter Berg when you need him?

Miles Teller is the stand­out per­former in this over­ly macho tale of an elite moun­tain fire­fight­er crew.

As the title sug­gests, Only the Brave is a film pow­ered by machis­mo and patri­o­tism. Through­out his career Peter Berg has proved a mas­ter of mak­ing the most ardent Amer­i­can patri­o­tism appear under­stand­able, real­is­tic and appeal­ing even to non-Amer­i­can view­ers. But unlike Berg’s Patri­ots Day or Deep­wa­ter Hori­zon, Joseph Kosinski’s Only the Brave spends not a sin­gle minute of its long run­time try­ing to con­vince us of the right­eous­ness of being a man’s man. Rather, the film assumes that we already endorse this par­tic­u­lar mod­el of mas­culin­i­ty, in which phys­i­cal strength is some­how equiv­a­lent to moral fortitude.

Con­sid­er­ing that the main char­ac­ters are a crew of elite fire­fight­ers – who go into the moun­tains light­ly equipped to con­trol the spread of wild­fires – it is com­plete­ly under­stand­able that these men should be in opti­mum phys­i­cal shape. Sim­i­lar­ly, one can under­stand that the stress of the job and the need to rely on each oth­er in life-or-death sit­u­a­tions encour­ages very close bonds between colleagues.

Yet the film is extreme­ly anx­ious to deflect even the slight­est hint of fem­i­nine or homo­sex­u­al over­tones in the char­ac­ters’ self-care rou­tines and close male rela­tion­ships. Any sequence of phys­i­cal train­ing or sim­ple con­ver­sa­tion between the men is accom­pa­nied with ban­ter of such ridicu­lous inten­si­ty, it all but under­mines the seri­ous­ness of what is, after all, the true sto­ry of a tragedy.

Only through Miles Teller’s char­ac­ter are we giv­en a real­is­tic under­stand­ing of the pecu­liar lifestyle of moun­tain fire­fight­ers. His Bren­dan McDo­nough starts the film as a fail­ure. A drunk­ard with­out a job, he learns only through a friend that his ex-girl­friend is preg­nant with his baby. This is just the wake-up call he needs. Despite not hav­ing the pri­or expe­ri­ence or phys­i­cal attrib­ut­es required, McDo­nough signs up to join the fire crew led by Eric Marsh (a heav­i­ly mus­ta­chioed Josh Brolin). Teller’s sub­tle act­ing and deliv­ery of often rather blunt dia­logue is what saves his char­ac­ter from being just anoth­er cliché in a film rid­den with them.

The same can­not be said of Brolin. Many of the scenes her shares with Jen­nifer Con­nel­ly, play­ing his unhap­py wife, are only sal­vaged by the reli­ably excel­lent Jeff Bridges. Although he only appears in a minor role as Marsh’s best friend, the vet­er­an actor pro­vides most of the film’s emo­tion­al truth. With much of the film focus­ing on uncon­vinc­ing char­ac­ters and anx­ious dis­plays of male brava­do, the emo­tion impact of the final act comes as a sur­prise. The end­ing is filled with such bleak­ness and unex­pect­ed vio­lence that it feels like it belongs in anoth­er, bet­ter film. But it’s not enough to jus­ti­fy the film’s exhaust­ing length or the medi­oc­rity of what comes before it.

You might like