McConaughey perfect match for thrilling ‘Lost Bus’
It wouldn’t be hyperbolic to proclaim “The Lost Bus” on fire. It brings the heat, and then some, in telling the harrowing tale of how a group of 22 elementary school students escaped a conflagrated Paradise and were led through hell by a down-on-his-luck driver confined in a self-made purgatory.
Setting off most of the sparks is Matthew McConaughey, the hunk behind the wheel of this sturdy, 15-ton, soot-covered conveyance that is the only thing standing between the children and a fiery death. Sporting scruffy attire and scraggly facial hair, McConaughey is in full unassuming-hero mode. And we’re loving it, as he transports us back to the halcyon days of edge-of-your-seat disaster movies.
Instead of “The Towering Inferno,” he and director Paul Greengrass offer us something more down-to-earth – a thrilling story of repentance and redemption played out amid California’s most destructive wildfire. Little of it is accurate or true, but who cares when you’re on the wildest bus ride since “Speed.”
In that one, there was no slowing down. Here, at the start, anyway, there’s no speeding up. That’s because the roads in Butte County were pretty much a parking lot, as thousands attempted to flee the fast-spreading flames. It’s pretty much every man, woman and child for themselves, as selfishness and self-preservation come to the fore.
For the film’s purposes, the person we should predominantly be concerned about is McConaughey’s Kevin McKay, a divorcee with – nepotism alert – an invalid mother (Kay McConaughey) and a recalcitrant son (Levi McConaughey) who harbors as much hostility toward Kevin as Kevin did for his late father. He’s also just a day after bidding farewell to his only friend, his aged, cancer-riddled pup. But if he can just deliver these kids and their sunny teacher, Mary Ludwig (America Ferrara), to safety, all will be fine. Or, so he and his anxious dispatcher, Ruby Bishop (Ashlie Atkinson), believe.
If you’re detecting hints of broad, shameless melodrama, you’re burning up. Greengrass and his co-writer, Brad Ingelsby (the awful “Echo Valley”), brazenly exploit every father-son cliche in the book. But it’s a mere sideshow to the main attraction, which is the fire. And the underlying message that blazes like 2018’s deadly Camp Fire are the result of ignoring climate change for far too long.
We also get a taste of how severely these events strain the limited resources of first responders, who are overmatched by roaring walls of fire elevated by high winds and extremely dry conditions. When all was said and done, the Camp Fire leveled nearly 19,000 structures and killed 85, statistics Greengrass dutifully notes at the end of his nail-biting feature.
The focus, though, is on McKay’s drive to survive, intercut with the efforts of Cal Fire and its frustrated battalion chief, Ray Martinez (Yul Vasquez), to coordinate an exhausted army of brave firefighters in the air and on the ground. The real Martinez, you might remember, is the civil servant who jolted TV viewers when he stepped to the mic during a press conference (nicely replicated here) and declared politicians idiots for standing by and allowing these fires to get bigger and deadlier each year.
That’s about as political as this Apple TV+ entry gets. The rest is fire, fire, everywhere, presented with stunning realism by a team of special effects geniuses led by Charlie Noble. You’re so deeply immersed that you feel trapped right along with the 24 souls inside the smoke-filled bus, cut off from all contact with the outside world. Kudos, too, to the stunt performers, many of them allowing themselves to be set fully ablaze.
Verisimilitude is nothing new to Greengrass, who’s become the go-to guy when it comes to depicting horrific world events, be it the hijacking of jetliners (“United 93”) and cargo ships (“Captain Phillips”) or mass murder (“22 July”). Here, he raises the stakes to the extreme, provoking unease and a strong sense of impending doom. But there’s an equal amount of positivity in the heroism on display, not just by McKay and Ludwig – whose instinct for calming intensely frightened children is impressive – but by the nameless, often faceless, firefighters charging into danger.
If there’s a villain, it’s Pacific Gas & Electric, which ignored warnings to shut down its high-tension powerlines due to the extreme threat of fire on November 8, 2018. The utility company pleaded guilty to 84 counts of manslaughter and was fined a substantial amount. But that’s of little consolation to those whose lives, homes and livelihoods were reduced to ashes.
Not only is “The Lost Bus” an honorable tribute to them, it’s also a compelling film that will leave you angered as well as awed. And it’s yet another feather in McConaughey’s cap as one of his generation’s foremost matinee idols. Sure, he’s probably a little more dazzling than the real Kevin McKay. But that magnetism is well-suited to a movie as breathtaking, literally, as “The Lost Bus.” He commands it, leaving no doubt that he and it are certifiably muy caliente.
Movie review
The Lost Bus
Rated: R for language
Cast: Matthew McConaughey, America Ferrera, Yul Vasquez, Ashlie Atkinson, Levi McConaughey and Kay McConaughey
Director: Paul Greengrass
Writers: Brad Ingelsby and Paul Greengrass
Runtime: 129 minutes
Where: In theaters Sept. 19 (limited) before going wider Sept. 26, and debuting on Apple TV+ on Oct. 3
Grade: B
