The Lost Bus, 2025.
Directed by Paul Greengrass.
Starring Matthew McConaughey, America Ferrera, Yul Vazquez, Ashlie Atkinson, Levi McConaughey, Kay McCabe McConaughey, John Messina, Spencer Watson, Danny McCarthy, and Gary Kraus.
SYNOPSIS:
A wayward school bus driver and a dedicated school teacher battle to save 22 children from a terrifying inferno.
Part corny family drama, part natural disaster epic (that both lingers on destruction for uncomfortably misguided spectacle and as a relevant reminder and warning of Mother Nature’s powers), part barnburner vehicular survival thriller, part inspirational Hollywood-ification of real-world heroics, and part retelling of these events using actual locals in small roles for authenticity, director Paul Greengrass’ The Lost Bus walks the tightrope between substance and exploitation. Repeatedly cutting to terrified expressions of children in a bus surrounded by the 2018 Paradise, California, fires, there is an emotionally manipulative streak throughout.
Matthew McConaughey’s average, financially burdened civilian hero bus driver, Kevin McKay, bands together with elementary school teacher Mary Ludwig. However, America Ferrera’s distractingly young Sandra Bullock haircut and close-up reactions unshakably recall 1996’s Speed, a thriller centered on a bus that couldn’t slow down below a certain speed, or an explosive would detonate. It’s a toss-up whether that’s the homage to make in a film chronicling recent tragedies through a razzle-dazzle, blockbuster, heroic sheen.
This is one instance of several odd presentation choices in The Lost Bus that make one question why he and screenwriter Brad Ingelsby wanted to adapt Lizzie Johnson’s book, Paradise: One Town’s Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire, which one can only presume was less fixated on the damage in favor of an action-forward approach. Is the fact that real civilians are present in this take on the events intended to offset that? At best, it’s a wash.
If it’s about the relatable parenthood story that sees Kevin as an ordinary father who has made mistakes, torn between racing home to his stomach-ached teenage son Shaun (Levi McConaughey) and mom/grandmother Sherry (Kay McConaughey) with Tylenol or boldly throwing himself into literal fire as the only driver left available to pick up roughly 20 elementary school children who have no access to the parents, to drive through that worsening disaster to an agreed-upon rendezvous point with no guarantee that he or Mary will make it back home in time to reunite with their families, Paul Greengrass mostly sidelines that to internalized conflict (McConaughey and Ferrera are unsurprisingly strong in their roles, elevating some tonal sloppiness). That’s also the right choice, considering it is difficult to care about such tropey family dynamics where the twist is that Matthew McConaughey’s family is in the roles. There is a strained relationship between Kevin and Shaun, who is, apparently, most happiest with his re-partnered mom, now stuck with his father for a couple of weeks.
Perhaps it is about vilifying the electricity and gas company that turned out to be responsible for most of the damage in the first place, but most of that is relegated to one scene and some end-credits text. Maybe it’s pure fascination with these wildfires. However, Paul Greengrass can’t make up his mind if he wants to shoot it like standard streaming ghastly CGI fare, ogling on the incident that starts the fire in the first place like Beavis shouting “FIRE!” or sell the circumstances as harrowingly, realistically as possible with a scorching color palette and life-threatening water runs. Even if the fly-on-the-wall observations of the fire department talking and working through evacuation routes and how to save lives (after a couple of appropriately thrilling sequences of them failing to contain the fire) tap into heroism with more grace than the speeding bus spectacle, it would be unfair to say that it amounts to much.
This may mean The Lost Bus is unfocused, but not necessarily to a fault. It is pulse-pounding and, for the most part, breathtakingly crafted, with something for everyone, regardless of what they are looking for in this inspirational recounting of bus driving heroism. Again, it falls somewhere between being well-intentioned in its recounting of wildfire heroics, sentimental, an effective look at what society can accomplish through unity, and exploitative, yet exhilarating nonetheless.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder
