I didn’t expect much from “The Lost Bus,” but I left pleasantly surprised at how intense and exciting the film turned out to be. This harrowing survival thriller, directed in all its shakycam glory by Paul Greengrass, is based on the true story of Kevin McCay, a California school bus driver who risked everything to save 23 children during the deadly Camp Fire of 2018.
Adapted from Lizzie Johnson’s non-fiction book “Paradise,” the film certainly dramatizes its source material (moments of poetic license are fairly obvious and hard to ignore), but it certainly captures the panic, the confusion, and the impossibility of the situation. As with most Greengrass films, the line between documentary realism and dramatic embellishment is blurry. But even if only a fraction of what’s portrayed actually happened, the story remains jaw-dropping in its intensity and human bravery.
Matthew McConaughey leads the film with a performance that’s more internalized than showy. He portrays Kevin as a deeply human figure that’s scared and uncertain, but propelled by something bigger than himself. McConaughey resists turning Kevin into a mythic hero and instead plays him as a regular man doing something extraordinary. America Ferrera brings a grounded warmth and strength to her supporting role as a teacher who boards the bus with her class, and the two work well together. Although the kids themselves aren’t major characters, they’re given just enough screen time to make you care, which raises the stakes even further.
The story may be simple, but it makes for an intense film. From the moment Kevin makes the decision to turn his bus toward the inferno, the stakes grow to nearly unbearable levels. The fire scenes are visceral, terrifying, and executed in a way that shows the hell and horror of being trapped by suffocating smoke and flames. The special effects aren’t the most impressive, but they look real enough and capture the panic and disorientation of navigating through black smoke, falling ash, and walls of flame. It’s so intense that you can almost feel the heat.
Greengrass leans hard into his trademark shaky cam style, and depending on your tolerance for that kind of visual chaos, it’s either immersive or infuriating. Some sequences, particularly those that take place inside the bus, are so frenetically shot that you might lose track of who’s where or what’s happening. Combine that with a few too many repetitive fire scenes of burning trees, collapsing power lines, and even more burning trees, and the film begins to wear thin in its middle section.
Although history has already written the outcome, “The Lost Bus” manages to deliver an edge-of-your-seat survival thriller that celebrates the ways everyday people can still rise to the occasion. On that note, it’s actually a bit inspiring.
