Ladder 49 (2004)

I am not sure what I really thought of this movie. It stars John Travolta and he does an excellent job like usual, but it also has Joaquin Phoenix who I haven’t ever really liked in any movie I have seen him in. He was pretty strong in this movie, but there was something else about the movie that buggs me.

Maybe it is the fact that any movie that deals heavily with Firefighters I always compare to the great Backdraft with Kurt Russell and Robert Dinero. This movie, the predictable kind of happens throughout the movie. The development of Joaquin’s character is created backwards, after an accident early on in the movie has him recollect on his time as a firefighter. There are deadly accidents that occur to some of his friends, and there is happiness with him getting married and starting a family.

But it is the end that is very sad, and actually, not particularly shocking but at the same time, the movie doesn’t fulfill your desire to have the good guys always win, and they aren’t infallible.

See this movie for John Travolta and the incredible 100 story fire that Ladder 49 has to battle, but don’t expect anything that hasn’t already been done, and anything that will come close to Backdraft from 14 years earlier.

Here are some similar arcade posts

• Basic (2003)
• A Civil Action (1998)
• Get Shorty (1995)
• Be Cool (2005)
• Crash (2004)

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