The odd Twisters apart, Hollywood isn’t exactly filling our cinemas with cataclysmic visions of natural and man-made disasters these days – presumably because the TV news has got that covered.
So Paul Greengrass’ (Captain Phillips, The Bourne Ultimatum) tale of humble heroism in the face of the apocalyptic 2018 Californian wildfires has a satisfyingly old-fashioned feel to go with its rousing storytelling. A callback to the days of ’70s ‘master of disaster’ Irwin Allen, it’s full of people putting themselves in harm’s way with minimum fuss, cool-headed professionals circling things on maps, and a visceral sense of rising panic. With the British action maestro behind the camera, there’s a dispassionate, procedural quality that eschews all the flag-waving that can blight the genre. The flags here are mostly on fire.
At its heart are two monumental forces: a hellish inferno that burns like the fires of Mordor across vast West Coast valleys towards the in-aptly named town of Paradise, and a sweaty Matthew McConaughey. The Interstellar man plays school-bus driver Kevin McKay, a luckless divorced dad failing to fix his painful relationship with his son, deal with his ex or figure out how to look after his ailing mum. There’s an almost sadistic level of overkill when Greengrass and Mare of Easttown creator Brad Ingelsby’s screenplay demands that he takes his dying dog to be put down, too.
Then a rogue power line, bone-dry drought conditions and high winds conspire to set the area ablaze – and offer an unlikely, and terrifying, shot at redemption. As McKay drives home to his sick son, his long-suffering dispatcher (Ashlie Atkinson) puts out an SOS call: 22 elementary school kids and their teacher Mary Ludwig (America Ferrera) are stranded with the fire closing in. Who has an empty bus and the stones to rescue them?
The Lost Bus barrels along at the speed of the fire itself
Based on journalist Lizzie Johnson’s book about the disaster, Paradise: One Town’s Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire, The Lost Bus barrels along at the speed of the fire itself as McKay and the kids find themselves enveloped beneath a ceiling of darkness. Outside of this scary canopy, the impressive Yul Vázquez’s fire chief offers quiet purpose even as mother nature provides a terrifying reminder of humanity’s powerlessness. Cascades of crimson Phos-Chek dropped by firefighting planes make zero impact on the blaze. Hope dwindles.
There’s very few bum notes here, with Greengrass sensibly keeping the kids in the back of the bus while driver and teacher joust over how to dodge the tailbacks and make for safety. Ferrera and McConaughey’s uneasy alliance swiftly kicks into gear as her concern to keep the kids calm and his need to get the bus moving adds more tension to the scenario. Like the children, the movie relies on McConaughey and he elevates a potentially two-dimensional character with a bruised heart and hangdog vulnerability in a way few others could.
Cinematographer Pal Ulvik Rokseth’s handheld camera work, some really slick editing and canny use of real news footage, combined with impressive CGI, give it all a pulse-raisingly immersive quality, like a plunge into the underworld. There’s a few words spoken about how the fires get more severe and more frequent every year, although the environmental point could have been more forcefully made. Then again, The Lost Bus is one long environmental message.
The Lost Bus is releasing to cinemas on Sep 19, and will be available on Apple TV+ on Oct 3.