{"id":205023,"date":"2025-09-06T13:03:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-06T13:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/205023\/"},"modified":"2025-09-06T13:03:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-06T13:03:10","slug":"youd-swear-matthew-mcconaughey-saved-22-kids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/205023\/","title":{"rendered":"You’d Swear Matthew McConaughey Saved 22 Kids"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tEighty-five people died in the 2018 Camp Fire that consumed the town of Paradise, Calif., but the number could have been higher, if not for the bus driver who shepherded 22 elementary school children through the inferno. Witnessing how close they came to being burned alive and reliving the satisfaction of being reunited with their parents are the key reasons people might want to see real-life disaster movie \u201cThe Lost Bus<\/a>,\u201d but don\u2019t underestimate the draw of movie star Matthew McConaughey<\/a>. His character may be a real-life hero, but on screen, it feels like he\u2019s the one making sure those kids turn out alright, alright, alright.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs directing assignments go, \u201cThe Lost Bus\u201d seems ideally suited to Paul Greengrass<\/a>, who might\u2019ve had better offers to consider before 2020\u2019s go-nowhere Western \u201cNews of the World.\u201d Apple was lucky to get him for a sensational docudrama which lends itself to the \u201cUnited 93\u201d helmer\u2019s immersive, eye-witness approach. It\u2019s just that the angle, while inspiring, doesn\u2019t begin to scratch what audiences want from a Camp Fire story \u2014 namely, the before and after of it all: Who, if anyone, were the corporate and civic villains responsible for the blaze, and how did such a community manage to rebuild?<\/p>\n

\n\tOn the latter front, Ron Howard got there first, and just as well, since he would have been the next most obvious director to handle such a project (which blends elements of \u201cBackdraft\u201d and \u201cThirteen Lives\u201d). Co-written by Brad Ingelsby, \u201cThe Lost Bus\u201d resembles several other Greengrass films in that it\u2019s also slim on character (only one of the kids has a name and personality), but succeeds in plunging audiences into the action \u2014 which, in this case, means trying to steer an unwieldy vehicle through hell itself.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe director reunites with cinematographer P\u00e5l Ulvik Rokseth for a film that\u2019s shakier and more radically handheld than their previous collaboration, the underrated but demanding \u201c22 July.\u201d It may have you reaching for the Dramamine \u2014 or simply turning away from the screen \u2014 even before the fires erupt, as Greengrass presents a normal day (the one immediately before Nov. 8, 2018) in Kevin\u2019s life as if someone were writing a country song about this guy: His wife left him, his son hates him, his trusty dog has to be put down (no joke) and there ain\u2019t nearly enough work to pay the bills.<\/p>\n

\n\tThose details suit the Matthew McConaughey of it all, since the charismatic Texan star makes no effort to hide his accent and even goes so far as to cast his own mother (Kay McCabe McConaughey) and child (Levi McConaughey) as Kevin\u2019s family in the film. Greengrass has always been scrupulously committed to authenticity, but here, he goes out of his way to include fire chief John Messina, dispatcher Beth Bowersox and other participants, playing either themselves or adjacent characters in the film.<\/p>\n

\n\tIs the result more engaging or instructive than a documentary might have been? Maybe not at first, when Kevin is acting erratically, arguing with his ex-wife about what\u2019s best for their son, Shaun. The boy called in sick from school on Nov. 7, and Kevin didn\u2019t believe him, but on the day of the fire, Shaun is genuinely suffering and stuck at home. The whole time Kevin is rescuing those kids (without cell phone or radio service), he\u2019s worried about his son\u2019s well-being, which is more effective if you know it\u2019s Levi in the role.<\/p>\n

\n\tMcConaughey is joined by one other name actor, America Ferrera, who plays Mary Ludwig, the schoolteacher whose charges Kevin was tasked with escorting through danger. She\u2019s every bit as active a participant as he is, doing her best to keep the children calm and stepping up for a few of the more daunting tasks, like taking the wheel while Kevin directs traffic and searching for water during a dangerous pit stop. By this time, smoke has blocked out the sun (one girl asks whether it\u2019s nighttime) and the grimy air has turned a glowing tumeric hue. One can only imagine what it must have been like to breathe.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe visual effects, by ILM and a handful of other vendors, are at once terrifying and awesome, apart from the lousy work done to reflect the accident that ignited it all (an iron hook that snapped on a Pacific Gas and Electric transmission tower, causing the live conductor to smash against the frame and shower sparks down on the dry brush below). Some of the broad-daylight visuals fail to convince, including early efforts by firefighters to reach the blaze before it can get out of hand, though the most important scenes \u2014 when the bus is engulfed in smoke and flames \u2014 look stunning.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe key Greengrass collaborator whose solutions are most sorely missed here is \u201cThe Bourne Supremacy\u201d editor Christopher Rouse. Without him, the chaotic and occasionally hard-to-follow re-creation takes nearly an hour and 45 minutes to fully engage, after the bus has been parked for a long, talky spell (Kevin discusses regrets about his relationship to his father, while Paradise-born and -raised Mary explains that she always considered the place safe, but now wishes she\u2019d traveled more). The whole movie, Greengrass has been giving audiences the wildfire\u2019s POV, propelled by high winds and blowing embers in all directions. Now it comes rushing through the clearing where they\u2019re waiting for a break, and the two adults grab a fire extinguisher and spray it at fresh outbreaks.<\/p>\n

\n\tRecognizing the futility after a time, they climb back aboard, team up to restart the overheated engine and go racing through a long stretch of burning road, surrounded on all sides by apocalyptic visions of burnt-out cars and collapsing homes. This is presumably the segment audiences will pay to see, and if they\u2019re watching on Apple TV+, they can skip straight to this part. And yet, between when the film was greenlit and its premiere at the Toronto Film Festival<\/a>, California has endured record wildfires. Fewer people died, but so many more lives were destroyed, tamping whatever pleasure there is to be had from \u201cThe Lost Bus\u201d with a harsh helping of reality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eighty-five people died in the 2018 Camp Fire that consumed the town of Paradise, Calif., but the number…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":205024,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[171,75753,53,113009,113010,77123,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-205023","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-matthew-mcconaughey","10":"tag-movies","11":"tag-paul-greengrass","12":"tag-the-lost-bus","13":"tag-toronto-film-festival","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115157493733211570","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}