Ordinarily I can find some kind of connection when reviewing two films at once, but I’m at a loss here, other than these two having the same release date.
Only The Brave
Directed by Joseph Kosinski
Written by Ken Nolan and Eric Warren Singer, based on the GQ article “No Exit” by Sean Flynn
Cast: Josh Brolin, Miles Teller, Jeff Bridges, James Badge Dale, Taylor Kitsch, Jennifer Connelly, Andie MacDowell, Geoff Stults, Alex Russell, Thad Luckinbill, Ben Hardy, Scott Haze, Jake Picking, Ryan Jason Cook
Soundtrack: Joseph Trapanese
A few weeks ago I woodshedded a pair of “based on a true story” films and I was not eager to do the same thing again this week.
Fortunately, I don’t have to.
I hesitate to call it great, but Only The Brave is very good. A bit uneven perhaps, but it’s a fitting and deeply heartfelt tribute to a group of men who battled not flesh and blood, but rather the fierceness of nature itself.
In a word: wildfires.
If you’re unfamiliar with the world of wildfire firefighting, don’t worry, the movie gives you a pretty clear picture, so much so that I won’t even bother to provide a primer, but suffice it to say it’s not the sort of work for the faint of heart, to say nothing of the physical demands.
It sounds like the most obvious thing in the world, but Only The Brave has realism on its side. I don’t know all the true life facts, I know for sure there’s some timeline shifting, but, on the whole, you don’t get the impression that there’s a lot of Hollywood-ing going on, which is nice for this sort of movie; and, outside of a few dream sequences for Josh Brolin’s character, nothing is even shot in a way that would seem unrealistic.
Speaking of Josh Brolin, this movie has a great cast (including Jennifer Connelly, who’s still as captivating as ever, and James Badge Dale, who’s probably my favorite actor who’s not yet a household name), and they all do solid work, though because it’s a feature film and not a miniseries, not a lot of people get much to do (there are twenty guys on the hotshot crew alone, let alone the other supporting characters, so screen time is at a premium for just about everybody). It’s hard for me to be critical because maybe everyone is portraying their real-life counterpart perfectly, but if there’s one performance I found puzzling at times, it’s from Taylor Kitsch, but, again, I don’t know.
Given that I didn’t know the story going in, I’ll assume most people won’t know the story going in either, so I’ll leave that to be discovered, but it’s most certainly a story worth telling, and I think Only The Brave tells it well.
It may feel a bit by the numbers at times (I mean, Peter Berg has had a near-monopoly on this kind of film the past few years), but I’d say it’s a movie absolutely worth seeing theatrically.
Just make sure you bring some tissues.
Rating: ★★★★☆
The Snowman
Directed by Tomas Alfredson
Written by Peter Straughan, Hossein Amini, and Søren Sveistrup, based on the novel Snømannen by Jo Nesbø
Cast: Michael Fassbender, Rebecca Ferguson, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Val Kilmer, J.K. Simmons, Ronan Vibert, Toby Jones, Genevieve O’Reilly, James D’Arcy, Adrian Dunbar, Chloë Sevigny, Anne Reid, Jamie Michie, Alec Newman, Jamie Clayton
Soundtrack: Marco Beltrami
Boy, was this a disappointment.
The Snowman has pretty much all of the elements you need for a pulpy crime thriller: based on a novel (one book in an expansive series; if they were planning on a movie series, that ship has now sailed), a drunkard detective, a murderer with a gimmick, intrigue, flashbacks, and, perhaps most importantly, an A-list cast devoting themselves to B-level material (somebody even plays twins).
This could have been so-good-it’s-good, so-bad-it’s-good, or, at the very least, just some trashy fun, but the execution was totally lacking (and, if recent rumors are to be believed, so was 10-15% of the script).
Right off the bat, there’s a lethargy to this film that it never quite shakes, and I don’t know that it could be fixed purely with editing. I was never so bored that I completely checked out, but, make no mistake, this was a bit of a chore to watch.
In contrast to Only The Brave, The Snowman thoroughly wastes its tremendous cast. Honestly, there’s not one standout performance in the whole bunch, at least not in a good way. Val Kilmer has a strange role that’s made doubly stranger by some truly awful dubbing, which I have zero explanation for, but that’s about it.
None of this really matters, however, because, in the end, this movie isn’t worth seeing or talking about any further.
I questioned whether it would be worth full price, but it’s not even worth a matinee.
Shame.
Rating: ★★☆☆☆