In the years since the devastating Camp Fire that burned down the town of Paradise, there have been several films exploring the story behind California’s deadliest wildfire. Documentaries like “Fire in Paradise” and “Rebuilding Paradise” featured the real-life survivors and rescue workers who navigated impossible circumstances to save themselves and their neighbors. Now, Paul Greengrass (“The Bourne Ultimatum,” “United 93”) gives the fire its disaster movie spin with a high-stakes story about a bus driver and a teacher who save elementary school students from imminent danger.
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It seemed like another day in Paradise for the residents of this small California town tucked between mountains. Parents are going to work, Kevin (Matthew McConaughey) is on his bus route shuttling children to school, and Mary (America Ferrera) is greeting her students for the day. But on this early morning, disaster strikes when poorly maintained powerlines from the Pacific Gas and Electric Company are knocked out of place by strong winds and their sparks land on the crispy dry brush below. Within hours, the small brush fire had spread to several more locations. As emergency teams assembled to tackle the fires, they faced high winds and rugged terrain, and the wildfire quickly grew well beyond containment. Kevin, balancing a tense relationship with his son and an ailing mother, agonizes over getting back to them until an alarming call arrives: there are over twenty students at an elementary school who need an emergency pick up. He turns back into danger for the desperate pick up. Once the children and Mary join him on the bus, Kevin must navigate an escape route back to safety as the flames grow closer and closer.
While “The Lost Bus” is based on a true story in Lizzie Johnson’s book “Paradise: One Town’s Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire,” Greengrass and co-screenwriter Brad Ingelsby (“Mare Of Easstown”) add much more drama to the events to make it an action thriller. Think “The Towering Inferno,” but it has been updated for modern audiences. Each event in the movie heightens the stakes as the audience can see – and to some extent feel – the fire’s heat affect those on the bus as the flames torch its metal floor and windows, and smoke creeps through the vents and crevices.

Greengrass and cinematographer Pål Ulvik Rokseth create the sensation of terror and heat facing our heroes through layers and layers of crackling flames, lighting the bus and everyone in it by the fire’s menacing red glow, and creating the chilling black-out conditions and confusion out of the clouds of thick smoke. In a stylistic departure from Greengrass’ well-known shaky handheld footage – don’t worry, there are moments here that fit that description as well – Greengrass switches gears into taking the fire’s point of view, positioning the camera like a dragon flying through the trees, wrecking everything in its path and giving a bird’s eye view of the destruction. It’s a humbling reminder of how unthinkably large and fast this wildfire grew out of control, and it emphasizes just how much danger is circling the bus with every minute.
At the film’s premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, producer Jamie Lee Curtis said she brought her friend Jason Blum on to the project, and while Blum may seem like an interesting choice for a project about the Camp Fire, Greengrass’s terrifying reimagining of the sequence of events makes perfect sense for a horror movie. The movie follows characters essentially escaping a giant monster of a wildfire. However, there are moments in the film that defy common sense and feel like the filmmakers were unnecessarily amping up the suspense, like when Mary takes a frustrating amount of time to get the kids on the bus or when she decides to look for water while the bus is parked precariously close to a propane tank. As scary as the situation was to begin with, it doesn’t need Mary to make some bad decisions to make it more thrilling.

In addition to Greengrass’ kinetic visual style, editors Peter M. Dudgeon, William Goldenberg, and Paul Rubell cut between the human drama facing Kevin, Mary, and the kids on a bus surrounded by flames on all sides with a play-by-play of what the emergency teams are experiencing led by the tough-as-nails Chief Martinez (Yul Vazquez) as well as what’s happening with other townsfolk like Ruby (Ashlie Atkinson), Kevin’s bus manager who makes the original call for help. The parallel stories build up the tension as all sides feel the heat of this dire situation.
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Despite a few of their characters’ head-scratching decisions, both Ferrera and McConaughey are committed to their parts, leading the band of children with an attempt at calming the thinly veiled panic in their voices. Like in “Speed,” McConaughey’s Kevin is forced to push through his fears to get everyone on his bus to safety with a certain level of confidence, which is tested almost as much as his bus driving skills on thin mountain roads. Ferrera’s role is sometimes the most laughable in her insistence on following protocol as the town is burnt to the ground, but she’s the most committed to addressing the needs of the children on the bus and reminding the audience of what’s at stake if the flames catch this bus. Both McConaughey and Ferrera’s characters embody the idea of an everyday hero: perhaps imperfect but unselfishly stepping up to help others in a time of crisis. While the movie’s artifice makes it a thrilling watch, its real-life inspiration is equally just as moving. [C+]
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