The Lost Bus plus Short Takes on some various other cinematic topics
Trial By Fire
Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke
I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative. However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to theaters, where I don’t think I’ve missed much anyway, but better options are on the horizon. (Note: Anything in bold blue below [some may look near purple] is a link to something more in the review.)
My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”
The Lost Bus (Paul Greengrass) rated R 130 min.
Here’s the trailer:
(Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size;
activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)
If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $ (as well as recognizing those readers like me who just aren’t that tech-savvy). To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows:
⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.
WHAT HAPPENS: This docudrama depicts how on November 7, 2018 during high winds in Butte County (somewhat north of Sacramento, CA) sparks from massive utility company PG&E's (I’m still making high monthly payments to them as rates have risen due to the events of this film and other similar ones) powerlines blew into an excessively-dry forest area (210 days without rain) sparking a hillside fire that, powered by strong winds (which prevented aerial drops of flame-retardant), grew quickly in an enormous conflagration that soon threatened the inhabitants of nearby towns, the largest being Paradise with about 25,000 residents. By the next day, attempts at evacuation were severely hampered by narrow roads, massive backups, and the raging fire, which eventually burned over 153,000 acres. In the midst of all of this horror, the film focuses on a middle-aged school bus driver, Kevin McKay (Matthew McConaughey)—a low-income, divorced man living with his mother, Sherry (Kay McCabe McConaughey), and teenage son, Shaun (Levi McConaughey), with father and child often at odds, including Kevin upset his son doesn’t take school more seriously while Shaun counters with Dad being a high-school dropout (had to, as the girl who’d become his ex became pregnant with Shaun). After dropping off his usual load at their school, Kevin gets a call from his Mom Shaun really is sick that day so Kevin makes an attempt to pick up some OTC medicine, swing by home, but that gets immediately sidetracked by Ruby (Ashlie Atkinson), the bus depot dispatcher, that 22 kids are stranded at Ponderosa Elementary (23 at first, but his parents got through to the school) because their parents can’t rescue them so Kevin takes it upon himself to go there where he gets the children along with one of their teachers, Mary Ludwig (America Ferrera).
The rest of this constantly-harrowing film deals with Kevin and Mary bickering about and finally agreeing on an escape route because there's no direct escape as the roads have become clogged, fire is raging all around them, especially when they need to go farther west to Chico as the original contact point of East Paradise School is already in flames—and, at one point, Mary has to jump off the bus for a couple of terrifying minutes to get some water for the kids. Through ongoing difficulties that need to be seen rather than described, the bus seems stranded until Kevin finally makes a decision to plow through the fire, allowing them all to safely arrive in Chico where parents reunite with their children. Later, as Kevin drives into the charred remains of his former home, his ex drives up with Shaun who tearfully embraces Dad. (I didn’t bother with Spoilers this time because had there been deaths on this “lost bus” ride [communication systems were down so Ruby and Kevin were out of contact] this story wouldn't have been put on film, so read even more about it just below.)
SO WHAT? Even though I’ve easily given this powerful film 4 stars there’s really not much more to say about it than it was massively-tension-building to watch, but ultimately a positively-powerful-experience (with able-to-breathe-again relief when the bus finally gets to Chico); of course, I’d expect no less from Greengrass as director, among others, of the Bourne secret agent movies (2004, 2007, 2016) starring Matt Damon, United 93 (2006) about the passengers and crew who purposely crashed one of the 9/11/2001 highjacked jet airliners to keep it from smashing into the White House, and Tom Hanks in Captain Phillips (2013), dealing with other terrorists. If you want to know much more about the events that inspired this film, along with a bit regarding the making of it, I’ll direct you to a cluster of various links: Camp Fire, an enormous exploration about one of the worst disasters in California history which left 85 dead, over 50,000 displaced, 18,000 structures damaged, with PG&E ultimately paying $13.5 billion in damages, pleading guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter; a short biography of the actual Kevin McKay along with an even-shorter (5:08) interview with him and the 2 involved teachers; an exploration of truth vs. fiction in the film (9:05) where it appears what we see is mostly accurate—although there was another teacher on the bus who chose to not be depicted: and some commentary on the making of the film (8:13) from M. McConaughey (not his actual mother or son who play those fictionalized roles in the film), Ferrera, and producer Jamie Lee Curtis. One thing I’ve yet to get better information about, though, is how all that fire was captured on camera; if it’s not from some sort of amazing special effects/computer-generated imagery (seemingly ILM and other wizards did this) then it looks to me as if some other county had to be destroyed to render those deadly visuals. You could constantly feel the claustrophobia of the bus riders as they seemed to be so constantly about to be engulfed by all those surrounding flames.
BOTTOM LINE FINAL COMMENTS: The Lost Bus opened in a few domestic (U.S-Canada) theaters on September 19, 2025, is still in some of them (I’ve got no info on how many or what it’s made in its theatrical run) but is also easily available via streaming where it’s free to Apple TV+ subscribers (this platform costs $12.99 monthly if you want to try it out [lotta good stuff there]). The CCAL is generally in supportive mode with the Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews at 87%, although the usually-less enthusiastic folks at Metacritic offer only a 64% average score. The supporters include Variety’s Peter Debruge who says: “[… McConaughey’s] character may be a real-life hero, but on-screen, it feels like he’s the one making sure those kids turn out alright, alright, alright. […] ‘The Lost Bus’ resembles several other Greengrass films in that it’s also slim on character (only one of the kids has a name and personality), but succeeds in plunging audiences into the action — which, in this case, means trying to steer an unwieldy vehicle through hell itself.” Conversely, though, The New York Times’ Manohla Dargis sees it another way: “With agitated camerawork and brisk editing, Greengrass sets the scene, sketching in the regional backdrop, even as he narrows his sights on Kevin […] Greengrass knows how to shoot and cut, but ‘The Lost Bus’ is at once too high-minded and too exploitative to work. However skilled the cinematography and editing, there is no saving a movie predicated on looming death with badly written characters and such a frustratingly narrow point of view.” I can’t say that I’m in sync with Ms. Dargis’ rejections, but we all have our own perspectives. What I can say is it’s time to wrap this up with my usual tactic of a Musical Metaphor, this time bringing you Arthur Brown’s “Fire” (on the 1968 album named for his group, The Crazy World of Arthur Brown) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzHtePuz13U &list=RDYzHtePuz13U&start_radio=1—"You fought hard and you saved and your earned / But all of it’s going to burn […] Fire, to destroy all you’ve done / Fire, to end all you've become / I’ll feel you burn”—a song which I think you’ll find is appropriately and intensely chaotic as is The Lost Bus itself.
SHORT TAKES
Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:
We encourage you to visit the Summary of Two Guys Reviews for our past posts* (scroll to the bottom of this Summary page to see additional info about your wacky critic, Ken Burke, along with contact info and a great retrospective song list). Overall notations for this blog—including Internet formatting craziness beyond our control—may be found at our Two Guys in the Dark homepage. If you’d like to Like us on Facebook (yes?) please visit our Facebook page. We appreciate your support whenever and however you can offer it unto us! Please also note that to Post a Comment below about our reviews you need to have either a Google account (which you can easily get at https://accounts.google.com/NewAccount if you need to sign up) or other sign-in identification from the pull-down menu below before you preview or post. You can also leave comments at our Facebook page, although you may have to somehow register with us there in order to comment (FB procedures: frequently perplexing mysteries for us aged farts).
*Please ignore previous warnings about a “dead link” to our Summary page because the problem’s been manually fixed so that all postings since July 11, 2013 now have the proper functioning link.
If you’d rather contact Ken directly rather than leaving a comment here at the blog please
use my email address of kenburke409@gmail.com—type it directly if the link doesn’t work.
OUR POSTINGS PROBABLY LOOK BEST ON THE MOST CURRENT VERSIONS OF MAC OS AND THE SAFARI WEB BROWSER (although Google Chrome usually is decent also); OTHERWISE, BE FOREWARNED THE LAYOUT MAY SEEM MESSY AT TIMES.
Finally, for the data-oriented among you, Google stats say over the past month the total unique hits at this site were 18,473. (As always, we thank all of you for your ongoing support with hopes you’ll continue to be regular readers.) Below is a snapshot of where those responses have come from within the previous week (appreciation for the unspecified “Others” also visiting Two Guys’ site):
0 Response to "The Lost Bus plus Short Takes on some various other cinematic topics"
Posting Komentar