Movie Review: Paul Greengrass Tackles Tragedy in a Fiery but Formulaic Thriller

Smoke, Sparks, Flame... and Not Enough Heat

Matthew McConaughey and America Ferrara star in Paul Greengrass’ adaptation of the book Paradise: One Town’s Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire, documenting Northern California’s devastating 2014 Camp Fire. As he did with United 93 — a film that dramatized the 9/11 attacks from the point of view of the heroic jetliner passengers who fought back against terrorist hijackers and prevented what likely would have been a strike on the White House — Greengrass cuts between multiple perspectives, laying out the timeline of an unfolding crisis.

(Photo: America Ferrera and Matthew McConaughey in The Lost Bus. Apply TV+)

In this case, struggling divorced father Kevin (McConaughey), a school bus driver with emotional scars and a difficult home life, weaves through city streets full of flame as burning embers rain from the sky. He’s the last-ditch rescue plan to save more than 20 children, along with their deeply empathetic teacher, Mary (Ferrera), whose gentle approach sometimes collides with Kevin’s more aggressive mentality. She’s concerned with having children line up in orderly fashion and sticking to protocol, including an emergency plan that the actual emergency has rendered moot; he’s more pressed by the wall of flame that’s rapidly sweeping down. Both modes are needed as the raging fires close in, the children scream in terror, looters menace the bus, and firefighters lose ground to the inferno.

Using brisk editing and stunning visuals, Greengrass keeps the tension climbing — until a point, late in the film, when our heroes find their way to a temporary oasis… very temporary, given how they are surrounded by fire and there’s no obvious way out. Here, things slow down and the character backstories take center stage. (There’s a rom-com style friction between the two that feels concocted and isn’t given enough fuel for any romantic sparks to take hold.) The melancholy discussion of regrets and life traumas would have served to give more depth to the characters, especially for Ferrara’s anguished Mary (we see plenty of Kevin’s tribulations before the first sparks fall into dry vegetation). Fire is soon sprouting up all around once more, kicking the film back to life, but given how the pace slows and stalls in this brief section it feels like the film’s narrative tension slackens and there’s not enough time or narrative road left to regain the lost momentum. A happy, if smoke-wreathed, coda feels similarly shoehorned, if not downright trite.

Still, this based-on-real-events thriller manages the trick of not feeling claustrophobic, and if the occasional exploding heating oil tank has a tacked-on feel, such moments still provide propulsion to an already-breakneck visual spectacle. It’s something of a shame that this Apple TV+ original is premiering on the small screen — a proper movie house presentation of the towering smoke clouds and hellish wildfire sequences taking place within them would have been enthralling.

The Lost Bus premieres on Apple TV+ on October 3.