It wasn’t until his third feature that director Joseph Kosinski finally dispelled the notion that he was a filmmaker of all style and no substance. Tron: Legacy and Oblivion were undeniably beautiful to look at, but neither of them possessed much of anything under the surface, something that definitely can’t be said of Only the Brave.
Top Gun: Maverick has every chance of going down in the history books as Kosinski’s best-ever feature, but it was his devastating true-life disaster drama that first blew any doubts he couldn’t merge story, character, and emotion with sweeping spectacle and an impeccable eye for visual detail.
Not only did the firefighting tale secure a Certified Fresh score of 87 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, but upwards of 10,000 users have awarded it an even higher audience average of 91 percent. And yet, not many of them turned up to see it on the biggest screen possible, with Only the Brave tanking at the box office after topping out with a shade over $26 million from theaters, nowhere near to recouping the $38 million budget.
The Granite Mountain Hotshots thrive under pressure as one of the finest firefighting units in the country, running headlong into danger whenever they get the call. Tragically, the Yarnell Hill Fire of June 2013 proved to be insurmountable. You need to be made of strong stuff to avoid welling up, with the film’s performance on ad-supported Freevee indicating there aren’t many dry eyes in the house.
Per FlixPatrol, Only the Brave has entered the streaming service’s Top 10 most-watched list in the United States, and it absolutely deserves to solidify its reputation as a minor masterpiece in the years to come.