LADDER 49

REVIEWED BY BRETT & LAURA WILLIS

Our rating: 3 out of 5

Because of: language, implied premarital sex, fistfights, smoking and drinking.

Rated:

In amongst the herd of look-alike, sound-alike Hollywood films, sometimes there’s one that’s a little different. More worthwhile, more uplifting than most. Such is the case with Ladder 49. Although it has objectionable elements that could have been handled differently, and there’s a strong element of violence, the story itself and the way it’s told are not splashy or exploitative. The movie is primarily about heroism and courage. And the hero’s main opposition doesn’t come from a “bad guy” but from a force of nature: FIRE. A secondary source of opposition is the hero’s own fears and misgivings, which must be conquered.

We open on Engine 33 and Ladder Truck 49 from a certain Fire Station in Baltimore arriving at an industrial fire in a tall grain storage building. The firefighters must rescue some people who are trapped on the 12^th floor and apparently overcome by smoke. While using a cable to lower one of the victims to safety, firefighter Jack Morrison (Joaquin Phoenix) is himself trapped in the building when the floor gives way beneath him. As Jack’s team makes every effort to reach and save him, we see Jack’s ten-year career in flashback sequences. His initiation as a rookie.  His first fire (an overheated oven, which the woman refuses to let the firefighters inspect). His first REAL fire, which he battles with a hose while crushing numerous computer-generated rats underfoot. The first time he saves someone’s life. The day he meets his future wife, Linda.

The birth of his first child. Incidents of his comrades being killed or injured on the job. Tension between him and Linda over his career, and over his decision to transfer from the Engine to the Ladder Truck and therefore from “hose duty” to “Search and Rescue.” Besides Jack, the major characters are Linda (Jacinda Barrett), Station Captain Mike Kennedy (John Travolta), and firefighters Dennis Gaquin (Billy Burke) and his kid brother Ray (Balthazar Getty), Lenny Richter (Robert Patrick) and Tommy Drake (Morris Chestnut).

There’s thankfully no direct, on-screen sex. However, there’s a good deal of talk about sexual matters, including an elaborate prank that’s played on every new rookie assigned to the Station. (This and other pranks are part of the “family” atmosphere that naturally develops among the members of the Station team.) It’s clearly implied that Jack and Linda, early in their relationship and after a night of hard drinking in an Irish pub, have premarital sex; we see her in Jack’s bed the next morning, with bare shoulders. However, Jack commits himself to Linda that morning and they marry soon afterward. During that same night at the pub, Linda made a drinking bet with one of the firefighters, with the loser having to strip. By a ruse, she won the bet and the muscular firefighter was seen removing his shirt before the scene cut away. Throughout the film, Linda shows a bit of cleavage in various outfits. Firefighters are sometimes seen in their boxers while getting dressed for a fire call. There’s one gay joke, and Kennedy is repeatedly seen in his polkadot boxers and apparently drunk and mean, all of which are part of the rookie initiation prank.

There are over 30 profanities including oaths and cursing, one or more uses of f*, and other sexual and anatomical slang. There’s a great deal of violence seen in the various sequences of raging fires. But this is impersonal violence, not something directed against someone by a human opponent. The only personal violence is found in a few scenes where the members of the Station team, after having lost one of the “family” to death or injury, deal with it in a less-than-perfect manner and sometimes engage in name-calling and fistfights among themselves. Many of the firefighters are Roman Catholic. Their shared faith is portrayed positively, but is also the basis for the central element of the rookie initiation prank. Other problem behavior and content includes frequent alcohol use, smoking by some characters, and some dishonesty (in order to pick up a pair of girls, Dennis greatly inflates his and Jack’s ranks as firefighters).

While wading through all this content will be very annoying for a sensitive viewer, the steak at the bottom of the garbage can is much juicier than most. If you can stand the peripheral elements, the core of the film really is about these brave souls who manifest what Jesus said was the greatest love of all—laying down your own life for someone else. And the tone is not at all tongue in cheek. It’s a portrait of real heroism, akin to that found in movies of two generations ago, before our society was infected with cynicism.

How does this film compare to similar films? Well, there aren’t really many to pick from. There are tons of cop movies of every description, but few firefighter movies. Backdraft had a lot of heroism, but also contained one firefighter character who had an agenda against some penny-pinching city officials, took the law into his own hands and became a murderer. Collateral Damage featured Arnold Schwarzenegger as a firefighter who lost his family to a terrorist bomb and became a one-man army, tracking down the terrorist leader; however, that film wasn’t really about firefighting. To my knowledge, Ladder 49 is the first film in a LONG time that keeps the focus on firefighting heroism from beginning to end.

Brett speaking: I saw this film twice; first alone, and then with my wife Laura. Both times the ending made big fat tears roll down my cheeks. And I don’t cry easily.

Laura speaking: I had to rise above the sexual content and cleavage, which seems so commonplace these days that I’m tempted to be more annoyed than offended. Beyond that, I was easily drawn into the film’s theme of giving of oneself for the benefit of others. The camaraderie of the firefighters, the bond within Jack’s family, the nobility of stretching of oneself to meet a need, and the reward of seeing lives saved blended to create a poignant drama that points the viewer in the direction of goodness. My ideal ending is a fairy-tale one; readers of this review will have to see the film to find out whether or not that happened.

With some reservations, we recommend this film to teens and up who are mature enough to handle the negative elements and appreciate the primary storyline. The work of firefighters is certainly something to be thankful for, and this film reminds us what they and other heroic people do for us every day.