Only the Brave is a 2017 American biographical drama film directed by Joseph Kosinski, and written by Ken Nolan and Eric Warren Singer, based on the GQ article “No Exit” by Sean Flynn. The film tells the story of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, an elite crew of firefighters from Prescott, Arizona who lost 19 of 20 members while fighting the Yarnell Hill Fire in June 2013, and is dedicated to their memory. It features an ensemble cast, including Josh Brolin, James Badge Dale, Jeff Bridges, Miles Teller, Alex Russell, Taylor Kitsch, Ben Hardy, Thad Luckinbill, Geoff Stults, Scott Haze, Andie MacDowell, and Jennifer Connelly.
Principal photography began in New Mexico in June 2016. Only the Brave was released by Columbia Pictures in North America and by Summit Entertainment in other territories on October 20, 2017. It received positive reviews, with praise for the cast and the film’s touching tribute to its subjects. The film is dedicated to the Granite Mountain Hotshots and their families.
Plot
Eric Marsh, superintendent of Fire and Rescue Crew 7 in Prescott, Arizona, receives a call to a wildfire. Due to Crew 7’s status as municipal firefighters, Eric’s prediction that the fire will threaten a nearby neighborhood is ignored by a hotshot crew from California. The fire behaves as Eric anticipated, and the neighborhood is destroyed.
Eric’s wife Amanda suggests that he should talk to Duane Steinbrink, the town’s fire chief, to complete Crew 7’s certification as wildfire hotshots. Duane warns that the crew will now have to commit to a longer working season. This frustrates Amanda, who resents how the time commitment already keeps Eric from wanting to start a family.
Brendan McDonough is unemployed, listless, and abuses drugs. His ex-girlfriend Natalie is pregnant with his baby, but she feels that he is too irresponsible to be in her life. When he is arrested for larceny, his mother kicks him out of the house. When his daughter is born, he wants to provide for her, so he interviews with Eric, who hires him despite the reservations of some of the crew.
The crew trains hard and is finally deployed to a wildfire for evaluation. They pass and become the Granite Mountain Hotshots. Natalie begins to accept Brendan and lets him spend time with their daughter.
The crew fights several fires, including saving a historic juniper tree, but Brendan is bitten by a rattlesnake while walking a fire line. While he recovers in the hospital, his mother suggests that Brendan should reconsider his career for his daughter’s sake. Brendan later approaches Eric about transferring to a different station within the department, joining a structural firefighting crew. Eric snaps, suggesting that Brendan’s criminal past makes a transfer nearly impossible, and that he will return to drugs without the purpose being a hotshot provides.
Eric and Amanda argue about Eric’s attitude towards Brendan’s sense of priorities, and his reluctance to start a family. Eric has a heartfelt talk with Duane, apologizes to Brendan and then returns home and tells Amanda he’s ready to start a family.
The Granite Mountain Hotshots are called to the next wildfire, thirty miles from Prescott. Traveling to the area, Eric tells his second-in-command Jesse that he will be stepping down and will appoint Jesse as the superintendent in the near future. Walking into the fire zone, Eric tells Brendan that he will help him secure a transfer so that he can spend more time with his family.
The crew begins a counterattack to contain the fire, but an air tanker mistakes it for a secondary fire, and extinguishes it. The crew now has to relocate, so Eric sends Brendan to higher ground as a lookout. When the wind suddenly intensifies and shifts, Brendan is rescued by another hotshot crew, and they evacuate to the mobile fire headquarters. The rest of the Granite Mountain Hotshots head to a designated safe zone after realizing that the fast-moving fire is too intense to go up against.
The fire picks up speed and jumps the safe zone, continuing towards the Granite Mountain Hotshots and cutting off their escape route. The crew clears a small site, and Eric calls in an air tanker to douse the rapidly advancing fire front. The tanker misses the crew, and they deploy their compact personal fire shelters. As the fire sweeps over the crew, multiple radio calls go unanswered. Brendan hears the radio call from the first helicopter to reach the site: all 19 crew members are confirmed perished.
The devastated families of the hotshots gather at Prescott Middle School, where they hear reports of a lone survivor of the twenty firefighters. Brendan insists that he should be taken to the school and enters the gymnasium. Upon seeing Brendan, knowing that he was one of the hotshots, they realize that he is the only one who survived, and that their loved ones have perished. As they grieve, Brendan storms out of the gym and has a psychological breakdown, where Amanda consoles him, all the while Brendan saying that he should’ve died alongside them.
Three years later, Brendan takes his daughter to the juniper tree that was saved by the crew. During the credits, photos are shown of the actual Granite Mountain Hotshots and their actor counterparts.
Cast
Josh Brolin as Eric Marsh
Miles Teller as Brendan McDonough
Jeff Bridges as Duane Steinbrink
James Badge Dale as Jesse Steed
Taylor Kitsch as Christopher MacKenzie
Jennifer Connelly as Amanda Marsh
Andie MacDowell as Marvel Steinbrink
Geoff Stults as Travis Turbyfill
Alex Russell as Andrew Ashcraft
Thad Luckinbill as Scott Norris
Ben Hardy as Wade Parker
Scott Haze as Clayton Whitted
Jake Picking as Anthony Rose
Natalie Hall as Natalie Johnson
Pell James as Claire Caldwell
Scott Foxx as Travis Carter
Dylan Kenin as Robert Caldwell
Ryan Busch as Dustin DeFord
Kenny Miller as Sean Misner
Ryan Jason Cook as William Warneke
Brandon Bunch as Garret Zuppiger
Matthew Van Wettering as Joe Thurston
Michael McNulty as Kevin Woyjeck
Nicholas Jenks as John Percin Jr.
Sam Quinn as Grant McKee
Howard Ferguson Jr. as Brian Ferguson
Rachel Singer as Brendan’s mother
Ralph Alderman as Evaluator Hayes
Brytnee Ratledge as Juliann Ashcraft
Jenny Gabrielle as Desiree Steed
Barbie Robertson as Marsena Thurston
Jade Kammerman as Stephanie Turbyfill
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