Ladder 49  (2004)

Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, John Travolta, et al.
Director: Jay W. Russell

Rating: PG-13

Distributor: Touchstone Pictures

Release Date: 10.01.04

Review Posted: 10.01.04

Spoilers: Minor

By Sara M. Fetters

Phoenix Smolders in Surprisingly Good "Ladder 49"

There is something beyond noble about a firefighter. While we would all like to think we’d rush into a burning building to save a life – especially if it is the life of someone we love – the truth is very few of us have the courage to do so. But firefighters do just that sort of thing, day in and day out, and they do it not even knowing if there is a life inside waiting to be saved.

It is hard to capture that kind of conviction onscreen. Ron Howard tried with “Backdraft” with only partial success; he got the fire scenes right but the turgid melodrama was more soap than opera and he wasted a magnificent performance by Kurt Russell. Firefighters can also be seen doing their business on the cable drama “Rescue Me” starring Dennis Leary, and while I personally can’t comment on the program it has been getting some uncommonly good reviews. Then again, in this age of “The Sopranos” and “Six Feet Under,” what cable drama hasn’t?

Now Touchstone Pictures’ “Ladder 49” starring Joaquin Phoenix and John Travolta enters into the fray. This day-in-the-life melodrama is a surprisingly good piece of work, and while it covers no new ground it certainly holds the attention. It is a strong, pulse-pounding thriller resonating with the vitality and passion of a living, breathing firehouse and the men whom call it home. Surprising, for months this movie’s rather anemic trailers had me convinced “Ladder 49” was going to be an utterly forgettable experience, and lo and behold it’s actually one of 2004’s strongest major studio entries.

The story of Jack Morrison (Phoenix), “Ladder 49” is primarily told through flashbacks as the Baltimore firefighter battles to stay alive in a ranging warehouse blaze as his comrades, led by Captain Mike Kennedy (Travolta), battle the flames and try to bring him out alive. In many ways, this is the “Black Hawk Down” of burning building movies. Kennedy and his men doing everything humanly possible – and sometimes feats beyond that – to make sure they leave no man behind. These sequences – all of the firefighting scenes, actually – are harrowing, director Jay Russell and cinematographer James L. Carter taking their camera inside the flames as no movie has. Each burning building takes on a completely new and different life of its own, each a character unto itself folding and twisting into new and dynamically complex facets with as many layers as the central human players.

That human central core is the team of Ladder 49, one of Baltimore’s busiest firehouses. Jack is the newbie, a probationary firefighter just learning the tricks of the trade under the steady stewardship of Kennedy. Good natured and wanting to prove himself, Morrison makes friends with brothers Dennis (Billy Burke) and Ray (Belthazar Getty) Gauquin and quickly immerses himself into the firehouse’s close-knit family. Over the next few years Jack grows as both a leader and a firefighter, courageously saving lives, putting out fires and endures the loss of more than a few members of the Ladder 49 family. His friendship with Kennedy also deepens, the fatherly Captain best man at his wedding to the lovely Linda (Jacinda Barrett) and godfather to his two dimple-faced children.

This backstory is the one told while Jack struggles to stay alive in the rapidly crumbling warehouse. It is also the least dynamic portion of “Ladder 49.” While Russell shows once again he can take tried and true formulas and still breathe new life into them – just watch “My Dog Skip” for proof there – he still can’t stop the sense of déjà vu one gets from tackling all the melodrama. Not since Douglas Sirk has a director been able to throw so much syrup at the screen without having audiences go into collective anaphylactic shock. And while that is definitely a good thing – who needs seizures when you’re watching a tearjerker – I can’t exactly proclaim unequivocally that ability is everyone’s cup of tea.

It is mine, more often then not, and it helps that the entire cast is unquestionably good. Phoenix smolders as Morrison, bringing richness and depth to the character Lewis Colick’s rather inert screenplay only hints at. After “The Village,” this is Phoenix’s second great performance in as many films and, thankfully, this time around it’s in service to a much stronger film. The rest of the cast adds able support, most notably Travolta (whom needs a hit badly) and Morris Chestnut (playing fellow firefighter Tommy Drake and making me almost forgive him for “Anacondas”), both of whom are fantastic. Barrett also resonates strongly, although her part really is nothing more than the long-suffering woman’s role more akin to a film made in the 1930’s than one set in present-day Baltimore.

Actually, absence of women is one of the chief mysteries of “Ladder 49.” When I said ‘the men whom call it home’ earlier, I wasn’t kidding, for in Colick’s world women just aren’t cut out to be firefighters. Sure, they can be wives, mothers, lovers, nuns and stiletto-clad bimbos, but picking up a fire hose and battling bonfires is apparently too far out of their delicately manicured reach. Maybe it’s just me, but did women’s liberation actually happen? Do I really have a sister in the military working in Iraq or is it just my imagination? It must be, for there isn’t a hint of any sort of female empowerment whatsoever going on here.

If “Ladder 49” weren’t so expertly handled everywhere else, this could be a major issue. Heck, it is a major issue, yet the movie still managed to sweep me up into its tumultuous storyline. As I said earlier, Morrison’s journey is a harrowing one, and the battle to save him from the inferno engulfing that warehouse is edge of your seat stuff most action flicks would give their right arm for. Even better, Russell didn’t milk my emotions for false tears, instead earning them with distinction by relying upon the bravery and sacrifice of true modern-day heroes to get me to reach for that Kleenex box. That alone earns the movie a gold star or, at least in this case, three of them.

Film Rating: êêê  (out of 4)

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