Trailer
Plot summary
Eric Marsh superintends Fire and Rescue Crew 7 in Prescott, Arizona, a crew with no Hotshot certification, so it is not permitted to fight wildfires head-on. When a blaze he predicted would reach a residential area does, he turns to his friend Duane Steinbrink. Duane wins the mayor's backing, and the crew has the rest of the fire season to pass an evaluation. Brendan McDonough, a heroin addict, learns that Natalie, a former girlfriend, is expecting his child and that she wants him kept out of the child's life. Arrested for larceny and told by his mother to leave her house, he applies to Eric for a place on the crew and says he has been clean for three months.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Only the Brave (2017)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Cameraman James Razo was severely injured while transporting equipment to a remote location used in the film, and sued the production companies, winning a $60 million payout in 2022, more than double what Only the Brave would gross at the box office.
- The film invents a rattlesnake bite for Brendan McDonough that puts him on lookout duty during the Yarnell Hill fire; in reality he was chosen for lookout in part because he had gone to a funeral and come down with the flu.
SPOILER
The film shows the families of the fallen Granite Mountain Hotshots learning of the deaths from Brendan McDonough inside a middle school gymnasium, but the real families learned from their own relatives or from social media posts.SPOILER
The end credits display photos of the real hotshots alongside the actors who played them and note that the Yarnell Hill Fire remains the largest loss of firefighter life in a single day since the September 11 attacks.
