This post was originally published on this site

‘Only the Brave” could hardly be more timely, since its larger subject is the wildfires that have been bringing grief and devastation to vast areas of the nation with what seems to be increasing frequency. To dramatize the courage and dedication of the crews that fight these conflagrations, the film celebrates the Granite Mountain Hotshots, an elite group of firefighters that faced its greatest challenge on a hill near Yarnell, Ariz., in the summer of 2013. Their homegrown spirit is so appealing, and their history so affecting, that you want to overlook the shortcomings of a dutiful, derivative script, with its several…