Directed By Paul Greengrass

Starring – Matthew McConaughey, America Ferrera, Yul Vazquez

The Plot – Based on the true story of the 2018 Paradise, California campfires, Wayward school bus driver, Kevin (McConaughey), and a dedicated school teacher (Ferrera) battle to save 22 children from a terrifying inferno.

Rated R for adult language

The Lost Bus — Official Trailer | Apple TV+

POSITIVES

The laundry list of greatest living directors seems to always snub Greengrass, who has made recapturing real life narratives naturally seamless in films such as “United 93”, “Captain Phillips”, and his most recent offering: 2020’s “News of the World”, and while “The Lost Bus” follows the same kind of safety zone that Greengrass has made a career out of, its execution is anything but standard, leading to such an enthralling channeling towards California’s most devastating wildfire that eventually led to the deaths of eighty-five of its citizens. What helps Greengrass truly stand apart here is in the devised list of calculated risks that he makes with his dazzlingly daring production, such as an abundance of practicality towards engulfing flames that are executed believably not only with gas lines setting a naturally glowing essence to flames, but also the logistics towards a magic hour of shooting that captures the darkness needed to convey such smoldering devastation, and it helps to orchestrate chaos in ways that conjure the scope and scale of this helpless town that has essentially been cut off from the rest of the world, all with Greengrass’ experienced hand guiding an immersive essence out of the undesirable ingredients of the environment that feel palpably registering, even towards an outsider’s perspective. Everything here from boldly encompassing sound design, involving the cackling of wood and the increasing influential heft of the smoldering fires, to the distinguished articulation in the environment subtly shifting the appearances of sweaty and dirty characters, helps to convey insight into the challenges of such an unprepared and uncontrollable environment, eliciting an edge-of-the-seat urgency that makes the stakes pound at their loudest heartbeats throughout the engagement, when the script isn’t spending ample time fleshing out the can’t-win stationary of a blue collar worker who has continuously failed in his life, while living within the intended lines. This aspect alone allows McConaughey to shine at what he does best: positioning himself firmly as a relatable everyman who continuously pours his soul out with a firm balance of agonized regret and anxious nerves, but beyond that, it also impeccably measures Matthew’s undeterred capability as a dominantly commanding screen presence to roll with the punches of a script that frequently reshapes adversity within both sides of Kevin’s life, in turn making two hours alongside him essentially driving a bus feel so grounded with humanity, as well as riveting for the ways Matthew repeatedly registers facially what he’s seeing ocularly. The cast is also where Greengrass takes what is arguably his most impactful chance, casting McConaughey’s real-life Mother and son in the roles of Kevin’s on-screen Mother and son, and it gives such a compelling naturality and candid responses to heavily dramatic sequences rooted in regretful words and distancing responses, possibly serving as the greatest crutch that McConaughey leaned so heavily on, in order to bring his fears and regrets as close to the integrity of the character as humanly possible. Speaking of naturality, Greengrass has called upon Pal Ulvik Rokseth’s gritty cinematography to enact an almost mockumentary styled captivity to the engagement that makes it feel like we’re witnessing things unfolding in real time between its characters, and while I’m typically not someone who opts artistically for the momentary distractions that come with abrupt close-ups and pan-outs of such a signature style, here, I confess that it worked synthetically towards tapping into the psychology of the characters, especially when it lingers on the face of someone who isn’t even speaking in that moment. Aside from this, Rokseth’s color grading here towards crafting an airborne smog that lingers atmospherically with desperation is simply immaculate, particularly among on-the-ground sequences that isolate the depicted characters in a cloud of ominousness and disparity so thick, without compromising the clarity of what’s captured. Last but not least, the storytelling does have some noticeable flaws in the imbalance of its opening act usage, but I did appreciate Greengrass’ desired intention to include multiple perspectives within the many angles of such an unrelenting disaster, especially in capturing the true scope and scale that calls upon the entire community to subside the devastation as much as possible. In a film not as committed to capturing the magnitude of the humanity that continuously hangs in the balance, the scenes pertaining to the firemen strategizing, or the bus management team scrambling to cement Kevin’s location, would be edited out on the cutting room floor, but here they’re utilized to illustrate the collective extent of what’s transpiring to outsider aspects that would otherwise be deduced to throwaway lines of expositional dialogue in character interactions, proving that Greengrass values each of them equally and intricately to the film’s advantage.

NEGATIVES

While “The Lost Bus” is easily Greengrass’ best film since the aforementioned “Captain Phillips”, it does run into some temporary deterrence towards reaching its goals, especially during an opening act that required a lot of time and patience to become fully invested in the depths of storytelling that ambitiously reaches for a lot of excess out of this inspiring story. This is because of the multiple narratives that the film lays out among its many secondary and supporting characters, with none of them receiving any semblance of characterization to match Kevin’s, in turn leaving it incapable to invest in a single one of them, but beyond that a consistent juggling in the deviation that took far too much time setting the motions of the conflict to action. The worst of the underwriting pertains to the electric company responsible for the blaze, with only on-screen text during the movie’s final shot tapping into it, and serving as perhaps the only angle that the movie doesn’t actually attempt in a script that reaches for much and grasps so little. When Kevin finally does pick up the children, with the intention to drive them to their parents, the film is nearly at the fifty minute mark, and only then does it start to tap into the level of urgency needed to drive the drama out of the story, leading to an inferior opening act that doesn’t exactly grab its audience immediately in the ways that I’m sure Greengrass intended. Making this a book-ended affair of conflict to the movie’s integrity, the film’s closing moments also drown on for a bit longer than necessary, stitching in an epilogue to Kevin’s arc in ways that easily could’ve been combined with the obvious moment where the film rightfully should’ve concluded. I appreciate closure to the context of any introduced arc to a film, but when it comes at the deducting of some of the resounding impact from a film’s grandest moments, in order to tie everything up neatly, it sacrifices too much authenticity away from the central objective, in turn reminding us in the most unsubtle of ways that this is a movie meant to uplift, even in the face of dire tragedy. Speaking of unsubtle, the dialogue and ensuing conversations also opt for more of the obvious methods in blandly spelling everything out for its audience, instead of delivering on something profoundly primal for such a gripping story of strength and survival. This lays on the dramatics heavily for Kevin’s characterization, resorting to more of the echoing of self-depravation long after the opening act has thoroughly established it, but beyond that makes the film feel every inch of its bloated two hour runtime, where another draft could’ve surmised something kinetically persistent to the shifting scenery, instead of opting for desperate characterization towards people you’ve previously judged long before this.

OVERALL
“The Lost Bus” does take on a bumpy ride throughout an overly ambitious and occasionally bloated terrain, but it heats the heart of its history with an authentically engrossing rendered canvas that gets as close to the flames as fictional can capably conjure, igniting another true story triumph for Paul Greengrass. While the unpredictably articulated environment is the fuel that fires all cylinders, Matthew McConaughey’s empathetically resilient turn as Kevin McKay are the hands that steers this vehicle throughout a two hour runtime, leaving little to chance in a story about community and second chances

My Grade: 7.6 or B