Paul Greengrass, master of pulse-pounding thrillers like the Jason Bourne series, delivers an intensely focused drama with “The Lost Bus.” This film throws you directly into the devastating 2018 Camp Fire, one of Northern California’s most catastrophic blazes. Greengrass’s masterful direction immediately grabs your attention, creating a visceral, high-tension experience that’s almost too effective at distracting from the script’s shortcomings.
Drawing inspiration from Lizzie Johnson’s 2021 nonfiction work, “Paradise: One Town’s Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire,” Greengrass and co-writer Brad Ingelsby hone in on one survivor’s harrowing tale. The book meticulously details the fire’s progression through individual accounts, alongside a broader examination of systemic failures, including corporate negligence. At its heart is the terrifying ordeal of Kevin McKay, a school bus driver whose ordinary shift on November 18, 2018, turned into a fight for survival after a faulty transmission line owned by Pacific Gas & Electric ignited the infamous Camp Fire.
Greengrass employs restless camerawork and sharp editing to paint a vivid picture of the region, quickly zeroing in on Kevin (Matthew McConaughey, delivering a raw, weathered performance). Kevin is a recently divorced father, struggling through life, sharing a humble home with his ailing mother (played by McConaughey’s real-life mother, Kay McCabe McConaughey) and his quiet son (Levi McConaughey). New to his school bus driving route, Kevin is responsible for transporting children across a picturesque Northern California landscape, a region historically home to mining, logging, and farming communities nestled in the Sierra Nevada foothills.
Soon, an ominous plume of dark gray smoke appears, quickly blanketing the sky in a terrifying red and obscuring the sun. While wildfires are not uncommon in this area – a reality exacerbated by climate change, though subtly addressed here – Kevin’s personal struggles, exacerbated by an endlessly critical ex-wife (Kimberli Flores), distract him. Unfortunately, this character feels like a hollow device, serving merely to inflate the plot and cast doubt on Kevin’s impending heroism, ultimately detracting from the film’s credibility.
The film continues to struggle with predictable dialogue, even as the crucial elements of the story fall into place. We meet fire department officer Ray Martinez (Yul Vázquez), and witness Kevin’s pickup of 22 schoolchildren and their teacher, Mary Ludwig (America Ferrera). By this point, the air is choked with smoke and ash, and a chaotic evacuation is underway. Many parents are unable to reach their children, leaving Mary and Kevin as makeshift guardians to their terrified young passengers. They, like countless others, soon find themselves ensnared in a desperate traffic jam, their once-familiar hometown rapidly transforming into a deadly inferno.
Greengrass masterfully builds tension, constantly shifting perspectives between the broader devastation and the confined terror within the bus. While he handles the child characters with sensitivity, witnessing even fictionalized suffering is deeply unsettling. It’s important to reveal here that Kevin, Mary, and the children ultimately survive. For those unfamiliar with the true events, this might be a welcome relief, knowing that the real individuals they portray did not perish like so many other residents. In total, the Camp Fire claimed 85 lives and decimated the town of Paradise.
Despite Greengrass’s technical prowess in filmmaking, “The Lost Bus” ultimately feels both overly ambitious and disturbingly exploitative. Stunning cinematography and sharp editing cannot compensate for a narrative built on impending death, populated by poorly developed characters, and burdened by a frustratingly limited perspective. While tales of real-life heroism can be inspiring, the film’s failure to adequately address the true culprits strips away realism, reducing a genuine tragedy to a generic thriller. It’s crucial to remember that Pacific Gas & Electric’s repeated neglect of a century-old transmission line directly caused this catastrophe. Since 2019, PG&E has faced bankruptcy, agreed to a $13.5 billion settlement for wildfire victims, pleaded guilty to multiple manslaughter charges in the Camp Fire, and has since emerged from bankruptcy, reportedly “on track to deliver solid 2025 financial results.”
The film “The Lost Bus” is rated R for its intense depiction of fire scenes, with a running time of 2 hours and 9 minutes. Catch it in theaters now.