America Ferrara

The Lost Bus

13/10/25

Apple TV+

A new release from Paul Greengrass is always worth further investigation, even though The Lost Bus, financed by Apple TV+, was only granted a fleeting cinematic release, so we’re obliged to catch it via streaming. Loosely based on a true story, it’s centred around the 2018 Camp Fire – a strangely innocuous name for what was actually the deadliest fire in Californian history, which claimed the lives of 84 people and destroyed hundreds of homes.

Matthew McConaughey, looking like a walking personification of the word ‘grizzled’, plays Kevin McKay, a down-on-his-luck school bus driver, based in the ill-named town of Paradise. Struggling to look after his invalid mother, separated from his wife and failing to communicate with his teenage son, Shaun (Danny McCarthy), Kevin has acquired something of a bad reputation. He is the driver who’s always running late, who often fails to fill out in his paperwork on time, and who’s constantly at odds with his dispatcher, Ruby (Ashlee Atkinson).

But when a deadly wildfire erupts in the California hills and high winds disperse the flames across a wide area, a class of twenty-two children and their teacher, Mary (America Ferrara), find themselves stranded at their elementary school. Ruby puts out a desperate call for someone to go to their aid – and the only person available to collect them is Kevin.

Sensing an opportunity for redemption, he heads for the school and picks up his passengers. But getting them to safety is no easy matter…

Greengrass sets out his stall from the opening scenes, presenting the fire’s inception. An electrical cable, pulled from a high tower by the rising wind, ignites the surrounding brush. From that point onwards, the blaze is presented as a hungry predator, rushing back and forth across the landscape, searching out its next target. It’s an inspired approach to the subject, one that inspires dread.

Just one day after watching the terrifying A House of Dynamite, I find myself once again plunged headlong into the realms of Stressville. But this being a true story, I can at least have the reassurance that there’s going to a happy ending… right?

Greengrass, who co-wrote the screenplay with Brad Inglesby, certainly keeps me guessing for a lot longer than is comfortable. His expert handling of the wildfire scenes, fuelled by Pål Ulvik Rokseth’s immersive cinematography, makes for exhilarating viewing as Kevin steers his rickety bus through what increasingly resembles the seventh circle of hell. (Note: no children were harmed in the making of this film. Honestly.)

McConaughey and Ferrara make an interesting chalk-and-cheese double act and, while some of the kids are allowed to be cute, they are never too shmaltzy. My only niggle is with the dialogue from the scenes featuring the fire team who are trying to handle the disaster, which veers uncomfortably close to exposition – but that’s a nitpick. The steadily mounting chaos keeps me on tenterhooks for the film’s entire two-hour running time.

All in all, this is an assured piece of action filmmaking, which highlights many of Greengrass’s distinctive hallmarks. I just wish I’d had an opportunity to view it on the big screen.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney

Dumb Money

23/09/23

Cineworld, Edinburgh

How soon is too soon? The real life tale of the GameStop share crisis happened during lockdown, when most of us were more concerned about where we were going to get toilet paper from than in following the details of a story about share dealings, and – while it might have been a big deal across the water – it didn’t warrant much more than a passing mention in the British press.

Pitched as a sort of David and Goliath story, Dumb Money relates the tale of Keith Gill (the ever likeable Paul Dano), a small time, blue-collar share dealer, who advertises himself as ‘Roaring Kitty’ and who has a predilection for wearing T-shirts with pictures of cute cats on them. Gill has a regular spot on Reddit, where he recommends likely investments to a group of followers. He has recently decided that struggling bricks and mortar computer outlet GameStop is worth saving – so much so, he’s willing to gamble his life savings on it and to encourage his viewers to take a punt.

These include hospital worker, Jenny (America Ferrara), and actual GameStop employee Markus (Anthony Ramos). But as the company’s share price begins to rise, a lot of others decide they want to get in on the action and throw in everything they can spare. What was at first a steady rise suddenly goes up like a rocket. But several hedge fund companies – including Melvin Capital, led by Gabe Plotkin (Seth Rogan) – have already invested millions into GameStop, in the confident belief that they will trigger a ‘short squeeze’ scenario. They fully expect the company to go bust and their hedge funds to make millions from its demise. Now, thanks to Gill, they stand to lose everything.

Director Craig Gillespie, who previously gave us the brilliant I, Tonya, does his best to make all this work, but to somebody like me, who has no knowledge (or indeed interest) in the subject of stocks and shares, it’s sometimes hard to understand exactly what’s going on here, or more importantly, why I should care. Perhaps Dumb Money ties in to the American infatuation with the idea of making something from nothing, of taking on the big players and equating money with success.

Every character that appears onscreen is accompanied by a credit informing viewers of their net worth, and the loveable maverick quality that Gill exhibits feels somewhat overstated when we learn that, as a result of all these shenanigans, he himself is now a millionaire.

Though it’s fitfully amusing and occasionally generates some genuine laughs, Dumb Money never really settles into its stride. When the big players rig the game so that small investors can no longer participate, we’re probably supposed to be angry at the fact that there’s no such thing as a level playing field – but the whole story takes place in a world that seems light years away from our experience.

Consequently, it’s hard to feel involved. And therein lies the problem. Those with an interest in such matters may have a much better time with Dumb Money than I do.

2.8 stars

Philip Caveney

Special Correspondents

Special1

01/05/16

Whatever happened to Ricky Gervais? The glory days of The Office and Extras are now long gone and his occasional forays into cinema have amounted to a few average cameos in other people’s movies and the woeful laughter-free zone that was The Invention of Lying. His new movie, Special Correspondents, is a Netflix original (though actually not original at all, as it’s a remake of 2009 French comedy, Envoyes Tres Speciaux). And, though it pains me to say it, it’s a disaster – a ‘comedy’ that fails to raise so much as a smirk.

Gervais plays Ian Finch, a hapless sound engineer working alongside charmless, bombastic reporter, Frank Bonneville (Eric Bana) who has alienated all his colleagues at 365 News and  is now residing at Last Chance Saloon. Ian’s other workmate, Claire Maddox (Kelly McDonald) is the closest thing to a sympathetic character you’ll find in this sorry tale and she isn’t really given all that much to do. Ian is also lumbered with a shrew of a wife, Eleanor (Vera Farmiga) who has all the inherent charm of a car crash and who gleefully cheats on Ian with Frank (though to be fair, Frankdoesn’t know at the time who she is married to).

When a civil war breaks out in Ecuador, Ian and Frank are despatched to cover the story, but Ian, upset by the fact that Eleanor has just walked out on him, accidentally throws their tickets and passports into a passing garbage lorry, leaving them stranded in the USA. Realising that this was his last chance to make good, Frank persuades Ian to help him fake a series of reports from war-torn South America. They are actually holed up in a restaurant across the road with a couple of friends, the almost terminally thick Brigida (America Ferrara) and her husband Domingo (Raul Castillo).

It’s a slight idea and one that is never really nailed – instead, what we get is a lazy, written-by-numbers story featuring embarrassing racial stereotyping, and a series of plot twists you can see coming from several blocks away. More damningly, there’s hardly anyone here you can root for, as McDonald’s character aside, they all appear to be venal, self-interested scumbags with an eye on advancing their own careers. Furthermore, a scene that emulates a faked hostage video is uncomfortably close to images we’ve seen in real life that are a million miles away from anything humorous. I can’t help but wonder if, in the past,  the sadly absent Stephen Merchant acted as some kind of quality control for Gervais. Left to his own devices, he seems incapable of creating anything with any depth.

With a new David Brent movie looming on the horizon, the only hope is that he’s put a bit more effort into that script, because this one is frankly dead in the water.

1 star

Philip Caveney