Ladder 49

LADDER 49 (2004) - Oct. 1, 2004
A cheesy, stupid movie. About a group of firefighters and the many fires they fight. Joaquin Phoenix was excellent as the main firefighter, and in fact his performance was probably the sole highlight of the film. He convincingly portrayed the transition from wide-eyed rookie to grizzled veteran, and without his performance the movie probably would have been a total wash. The main problem is that there weren't any decent characters -- I never forgot that they were all just characters in a movie, not one seemed like a real person. And then there were the firefighting scenes, which, I don't know -- either firefighting just isn't exciting, or the director sucked. Towards the end I was starting to dread the next fire. And there were a lot of them. Basically, there weren't any good characters, and the firefighting scenes were dull, so... Aside from actual firefighters, I'm not really sure who this movie is supposed to appeal to. Plus, the ending seemed incredibly harsh, especially for a cheesy movie like this. **