The true story behind The Lost Bus is stranger than fiction. More specifically, its premise feels like something dreamed up by a screenwriter in the late ’90s, when disaster movies like Twister, Volcano, and Deep Impact were all the rage. An average Joe with problems of his own heroically uses his blue-collar skills and homegrown gumption to rescue a bus full of children stranded by a ravenous wildfire. And the cherry on top? This community that’s ablaze is called Paradise.
Yet The Lost Bus is based on the true story of school bus driver Kevin McKay, who on Nov. 8, 2018, rescued 22 grade school students from the Camp Fire, the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history to date. In the movie version of McKay’s life, details will be tweaked for dramatic effect. And this brave everyman gets the Hollywood glow-up, being played by Matthew McConaughey. However, director Paul Greengrass, who co-wrote the screenplay with Brad Ingelsby, battles back against a full-fledged glossy disaster movie.
So, what might have been a spectacle, channeling real-world heroism into the dynamic derring-do of an American action hero, instead becomes a rocky ride, taking turns into the maudlin one moment and the theatrically threatening the next. The result is a movie that is gripping, but only in gasps.
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