In the aftermath of Sept. 11, where the heroism of firefighters became amply clear, a film such as Ladder 49 makes sense. The film is less of a drama than a tribute -- an ode, even -- to the spirit and tenacity of firefighters. Its makers hardly bother to explore the lives or motives behind their actions: The firemen are simply heroic, and the film is content to leave it at that.
Spread over more than a decade, the film stars Joaquin Phoenix as a dedicated fireman and John Travolta as his mentor/captain. With those two above the title, Ladder 49 is poised to post average numbers at the boxoffice, appealing more to men than women, obviously. Nevertheless, the film is unique among studio releases in its avoidance of anything smacking of conflict. The film relies entirely on fires to provide tension. Otherwise, this band of brothers hangs out at the station, engaging in pranks and dwelling in a world of familial harmony and brotherly love. In other words, it's woefully short on drama.
As hokey as it was, Backdraft, Ron Howard's 1991 tale of firefighting brothers, had a B-movie soul that permitted an interplay of jealousies and rivalries against the backdrop of horrific fires and derring-do. Ladder 49 mutes even a whisper of fear or animosity. Would any Hollywood film tackle a police department, the military or any other such organization of skilled fighters without a dose of verisimilitude? The makers of Ladder 49 insist that halos remain above its firemen/heroes, which is not the way to humanize them.
The story begins with a spectacular nighttime fire raging in a Baltimore warehouse. Fireman Jack Morrison (Phoenix), part of the search-and-rescue team, enters the building to look for victims trapped on the 12th floor. The team successfully rescues a man, but the floor beneath Jack collapses, hurling him deep into the smoldering caldron. Outside, Captain Mike Kennedy (Travolta) desperately strategizes to save his friend. The movie then flashes back and forth from this climatic sequence to trace Jack's life in the Baltimore Fire Department.
We learn that this particular engine company loves practical jokes, admires its sterling captain and shows up for all weddings, baptisms and birthday parties while always maintaining camaraderie. The courtship of John and his wife Linda (Jacinda Barrett) is treated with such decorum as to make James Stewart's wooing of Donna Reed in It's a Wonderful Life look downright racy.
This paradise on earth gets brutally interrupted, of course, by terrific fire sequences, which serve mostly to demonstrate the really bad things that can happen to firemen. Jack's first buddy, Dennis (Billy Burke), falls through a roof into a furnace. His next best buddy, Tommy (Morris Chestnut), gets blasted by scorching steam. Teaming with Lenny (Robert Patrick), Jack does win a heroism badge by rescuing a little girl.
Yet we get no sense of what's going on inside these heroes. How does it feel to save someone's life? Do they feel like gods? Do their egos ever get the better of them? Given the number of scenes set in an Irish tavern, are we to assume they drink to blunt the sorrows and fears?
Writer Lewis Colick reportedly spent days with firefighters, and director Jay Russell has a documentary background, which serve both men well in recording the routines and skills of their heroes. One gains an inkling of what such lives are about but not, unfortunately, what these characters are about.
Phoenix and Travolta do a fine job at portraying a mentorship that is really more of a friendship between men, who respect and admire one another without making a big deal out of it. The other actors make do with characters that lack dimension.
Cinematographer James L. Carter, visual effects supervisor Peter Donen and designer Tony Burrough perform extraordinary work in safely recreating the very dangerous-looking environments in which fireman often labor. William Ross provides a serviceable score, ranging from militaristic tones and sentimental asides to pulse-pounding beats.
LADDER 49
Buena Vista Pictures
Touchstone Pictures and Beacon Pictures present a Casey Silver production
Credits:
Director: Jay Russell
Screenwriter: Lewis Colick
Producer: Casey Silver
Executive producer: Armyan Bernstein, Marty Ewing
Director of photography: James L. Carter
Production designer: Tony Burrough
Music: William Ross
Costumes: Renee Ehrlich Kalfus
Editors: Bud Smith, Scott Smith. Cast: Jack Morrison: Joaquin Phoenix
Chief Kennedy: John Travolta
Linda: Jacinda Barrett
Lenny: Robert Patrick
Tommy: Morris Chestnut
Dennis: Billy Burke
Ray: Balthazar Getty
MPAA rating PG-13
Running time -- 114 minutes...
Spread over more than a decade, the film stars Joaquin Phoenix as a dedicated fireman and John Travolta as his mentor/captain. With those two above the title, Ladder 49 is poised to post average numbers at the boxoffice, appealing more to men than women, obviously. Nevertheless, the film is unique among studio releases in its avoidance of anything smacking of conflict. The film relies entirely on fires to provide tension. Otherwise, this band of brothers hangs out at the station, engaging in pranks and dwelling in a world of familial harmony and brotherly love. In other words, it's woefully short on drama.
As hokey as it was, Backdraft, Ron Howard's 1991 tale of firefighting brothers, had a B-movie soul that permitted an interplay of jealousies and rivalries against the backdrop of horrific fires and derring-do. Ladder 49 mutes even a whisper of fear or animosity. Would any Hollywood film tackle a police department, the military or any other such organization of skilled fighters without a dose of verisimilitude? The makers of Ladder 49 insist that halos remain above its firemen/heroes, which is not the way to humanize them.
The story begins with a spectacular nighttime fire raging in a Baltimore warehouse. Fireman Jack Morrison (Phoenix), part of the search-and-rescue team, enters the building to look for victims trapped on the 12th floor. The team successfully rescues a man, but the floor beneath Jack collapses, hurling him deep into the smoldering caldron. Outside, Captain Mike Kennedy (Travolta) desperately strategizes to save his friend. The movie then flashes back and forth from this climatic sequence to trace Jack's life in the Baltimore Fire Department.
We learn that this particular engine company loves practical jokes, admires its sterling captain and shows up for all weddings, baptisms and birthday parties while always maintaining camaraderie. The courtship of John and his wife Linda (Jacinda Barrett) is treated with such decorum as to make James Stewart's wooing of Donna Reed in It's a Wonderful Life look downright racy.
This paradise on earth gets brutally interrupted, of course, by terrific fire sequences, which serve mostly to demonstrate the really bad things that can happen to firemen. Jack's first buddy, Dennis (Billy Burke), falls through a roof into a furnace. His next best buddy, Tommy (Morris Chestnut), gets blasted by scorching steam. Teaming with Lenny (Robert Patrick), Jack does win a heroism badge by rescuing a little girl.
Yet we get no sense of what's going on inside these heroes. How does it feel to save someone's life? Do they feel like gods? Do their egos ever get the better of them? Given the number of scenes set in an Irish tavern, are we to assume they drink to blunt the sorrows and fears?
Writer Lewis Colick reportedly spent days with firefighters, and director Jay Russell has a documentary background, which serve both men well in recording the routines and skills of their heroes. One gains an inkling of what such lives are about but not, unfortunately, what these characters are about.
Phoenix and Travolta do a fine job at portraying a mentorship that is really more of a friendship between men, who respect and admire one another without making a big deal out of it. The other actors make do with characters that lack dimension.
Cinematographer James L. Carter, visual effects supervisor Peter Donen and designer Tony Burrough perform extraordinary work in safely recreating the very dangerous-looking environments in which fireman often labor. William Ross provides a serviceable score, ranging from militaristic tones and sentimental asides to pulse-pounding beats.
LADDER 49
Buena Vista Pictures
Touchstone Pictures and Beacon Pictures present a Casey Silver production
Credits:
Director: Jay Russell
Screenwriter: Lewis Colick
Producer: Casey Silver
Executive producer: Armyan Bernstein, Marty Ewing
Director of photography: James L. Carter
Production designer: Tony Burrough
Music: William Ross
Costumes: Renee Ehrlich Kalfus
Editors: Bud Smith, Scott Smith. Cast: Jack Morrison: Joaquin Phoenix
Chief Kennedy: John Travolta
Linda: Jacinda Barrett
Lenny: Robert Patrick
Tommy: Morris Chestnut
Dennis: Billy Burke
Ray: Balthazar Getty
MPAA rating PG-13
Running time -- 114 minutes...
- 10/14/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Revisiting the exciting milieu of Warner Bros.' 1993 boxoffice smash "The Fugitive", but with one notable difference in the absence of superstar Harrison Ford as the wily good guy on the run, "U.S. Marshals" is a satisfying action extravaganza with Oscar winner Tommy Lee Jones returning as the tough, relentless Chief Deputy Marshal Samuel Gerard.
Stuart Baird ("Executive Action") marshals his troops with finesse, and debut screenwriter John Pogue has come up with inventive ways to pay homage to writer Roy Huggins' characters and the original film.
Produced by Arnold and Anne Kopelson, the wide release won't chase down the big numbers of its predecessor, but it's a sure-fire winner worldwide and should not escape the attention of video renters.
The success of "The Fugitive" was rightly recognized as the dual attraction of Ford's heroic doctor on a quest to clear his name and the professionalism of Jones' driven bogyman to the bad guys. Diverging from the original premise, "U.S. Marshals" lacks the first film's simple, dynamic structure and the strong emotional bonds one forms with the desperate "runner."
Instead, there's a big question as to whose side the current film's fugitive is on. Seen first in a spectacular curtain-raising traffic accident that lands him in the hospital, tow truck driver Sheridan (Wesley Snipes) is battered but in for far worse when the police find a concealed weapon in his truck. Seems the gun was used in a double homicide.
In short order he's put on a prisoner transport plane, and before one can say "Con Air" ten times, an assassin among the convicts tries to shoot him and causes a nasty crash landing instead. Also on board is Gerard, and he helps rescue the survivors after the plane lands on a rural road, flattens a bunch of telephone poles, skids off the road, flips over and lands upside down in the Ohio River.
The plane crash is the analog of the first film's knockout train-and-bus wreck, whose jump-off-the-dam scene is replayed with Sheridan swinging off a building in a move that would have Quasimodo demanding a stunt double. Overall, from the early tracking of the enigmatic Sheridan through the woods near the plane crash to the climactic rounds of cat-and-mouse pursuits and surprise gun battles in New York, Baird and crew successfully keep the tension high despite some confusing plot points.
Sheridan is both a runner and shooter, as Gerard finds out in one point-blank encounter, but it's a bit frustrating the way the audience is kept in the dark about his true identity and how he connects to the murders that one is initially led to believe he knows nothing about. Indeed, the focus is squarely on Gerard and his team, including returnees from the first film Joe Pantoliano, Daniel Roebuck and Tom Wood.
As such, "U.S. Marshals" is a showcase for Jones, and he comes through with another convincing, grounded performance. He's hurt but doesn't take it personally when he's shot at, yet he has an emotional side that comes out when one of his comrades is killed. With a more potent motive for risking life and limb than in the first film, Gerard also makes a mistake or two in figuring out who is the real bad guy.
Kate Nelligan is elegantly authoritative as Gerard's boss. While government agent Robert Downey Jr. is a bit too devious-looking from the outset, the actor has several fine moments playing the outsider on Team U.S. Marshals.
Well mounted in all regards, the elaborate production has a rugged physicality and mostly believable sequences, with the solid contributions of mechanical-effects supervisor Mike Meinardus, visual effects-designer Peter Donen and stunt coordinator Gary Davis.
U.S. MARSHALS
Warner Bros.
A Kopelson Entertainment/Keith Barish production
Director: Stuart Baird
Producers: Arnold Kopelson, Anne Kopelson
Based on characters created by: Roy Huggins
Screenwriter: John Pogue
Executive producers: Keith Barish, Roy Huggins
Co-executive producer: Wolfgang Glattes
Music: Jerry Goldsmith
Director of photography: Andrzej Bartkowiak
Production designer: Maher Ahmad
Editor: Terry Rawlings
Color/stereo
Cast:
Gerard: Tommy Lee Jones
Sheridan: Wesley Snipes
John Royce: Robert Downey Jr.
Renfro: Joe Pantoliano
Walsh: Kate Nelligan
Marie: Irene Jacob
Biggs: Daniel Roebuck
Newman: Tom Wood
Running time -- 131 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
Stuart Baird ("Executive Action") marshals his troops with finesse, and debut screenwriter John Pogue has come up with inventive ways to pay homage to writer Roy Huggins' characters and the original film.
Produced by Arnold and Anne Kopelson, the wide release won't chase down the big numbers of its predecessor, but it's a sure-fire winner worldwide and should not escape the attention of video renters.
The success of "The Fugitive" was rightly recognized as the dual attraction of Ford's heroic doctor on a quest to clear his name and the professionalism of Jones' driven bogyman to the bad guys. Diverging from the original premise, "U.S. Marshals" lacks the first film's simple, dynamic structure and the strong emotional bonds one forms with the desperate "runner."
Instead, there's a big question as to whose side the current film's fugitive is on. Seen first in a spectacular curtain-raising traffic accident that lands him in the hospital, tow truck driver Sheridan (Wesley Snipes) is battered but in for far worse when the police find a concealed weapon in his truck. Seems the gun was used in a double homicide.
In short order he's put on a prisoner transport plane, and before one can say "Con Air" ten times, an assassin among the convicts tries to shoot him and causes a nasty crash landing instead. Also on board is Gerard, and he helps rescue the survivors after the plane lands on a rural road, flattens a bunch of telephone poles, skids off the road, flips over and lands upside down in the Ohio River.
The plane crash is the analog of the first film's knockout train-and-bus wreck, whose jump-off-the-dam scene is replayed with Sheridan swinging off a building in a move that would have Quasimodo demanding a stunt double. Overall, from the early tracking of the enigmatic Sheridan through the woods near the plane crash to the climactic rounds of cat-and-mouse pursuits and surprise gun battles in New York, Baird and crew successfully keep the tension high despite some confusing plot points.
Sheridan is both a runner and shooter, as Gerard finds out in one point-blank encounter, but it's a bit frustrating the way the audience is kept in the dark about his true identity and how he connects to the murders that one is initially led to believe he knows nothing about. Indeed, the focus is squarely on Gerard and his team, including returnees from the first film Joe Pantoliano, Daniel Roebuck and Tom Wood.
As such, "U.S. Marshals" is a showcase for Jones, and he comes through with another convincing, grounded performance. He's hurt but doesn't take it personally when he's shot at, yet he has an emotional side that comes out when one of his comrades is killed. With a more potent motive for risking life and limb than in the first film, Gerard also makes a mistake or two in figuring out who is the real bad guy.
Kate Nelligan is elegantly authoritative as Gerard's boss. While government agent Robert Downey Jr. is a bit too devious-looking from the outset, the actor has several fine moments playing the outsider on Team U.S. Marshals.
Well mounted in all regards, the elaborate production has a rugged physicality and mostly believable sequences, with the solid contributions of mechanical-effects supervisor Mike Meinardus, visual effects-designer Peter Donen and stunt coordinator Gary Davis.
U.S. MARSHALS
Warner Bros.
A Kopelson Entertainment/Keith Barish production
Director: Stuart Baird
Producers: Arnold Kopelson, Anne Kopelson
Based on characters created by: Roy Huggins
Screenwriter: John Pogue
Executive producers: Keith Barish, Roy Huggins
Co-executive producer: Wolfgang Glattes
Music: Jerry Goldsmith
Director of photography: Andrzej Bartkowiak
Production designer: Maher Ahmad
Editor: Terry Rawlings
Color/stereo
Cast:
Gerard: Tommy Lee Jones
Sheridan: Wesley Snipes
John Royce: Robert Downey Jr.
Renfro: Joe Pantoliano
Walsh: Kate Nelligan
Marie: Irene Jacob
Biggs: Daniel Roebuck
Newman: Tom Wood
Running time -- 131 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
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