Heróis de Fogo

Impressing, astonishing, frighteningly beautiful shots of forest fires. Also an incredible scene of a woman giving birth stuck in a burning bus. Good acting, some humor here and there. But altogether a quite conventional hero and catastrophy story with stereotypical antiheros on the firefighter team and a hardly innovative father-daughter-son in law love and family drama and pathetic slow motion hero shots and patriotic vibes that remind of Armageddon and its likes. But still very entertaining and grippling due to the very worthwhile fire images and a duty that is unarguably indeed very heroic.

I do think it's a pretty good movie that I seen. The story is pretty good with firefighter goal is to stop the fire and save the villagers. It builds up really well with the characters and the disaster of the fire. The movie is pretty long and could be trimmed by cutting scenes that is not necessary to the plot. A couple plotlines that is easily predictable and is rather generic for the most about. The strongest part is the suspense on how the characters trying to figured out how to save everyone and to protect people from the dangers of the fire. It contains great special effects of the fire and other things.

It's a pretty good Russian disaster movie.

Unlike "Only the Brave" - which is one of the most honest and tragic movie about firefighters - this one is not based on a real story. So this is much more intense and entertaining. Very good looking picture and great acting of Kostantin Khabensky.

But it looks like producers watched "Only the Brave" and decided to do same stuff but more. More fire, more drama, add a dozen of kids, a pregnant woman and some over the edge heroic sequences that does match with physics. Not a total rip-off of the Braves, but you can clearly see where did they get their fuel.

But where slow paced "Only the Brave" made real drama build up and make you cry in the end - this one just all over the place. Where first movie shows in details the actual work of hotshots and what is their actual line of work - this movie kinda more about dealing with people then with fire. May be this is more truthful to Russia. In any case this does not hit you with a drama as much as "Only the Brave" and gives you more entertaining experience more like summer blockbuster movies.

I see no point comparing it to "Backdraft" as some other reviewers - cause unless you've been living under a rock for last 30 years you've got more flicks to compare too. Backdraft is classics, but let it go already.

Anyway, I totally recommend to watch this movie. Great flick! But the best way to understand it is after "Only the Brave". Cause they definitely payed some ommage to it.

A very high-quality film made, despite the cringe in the first 15 minutes and in places a lazy set-up, a very tense and coolly directed film with a cool Khabensky. I do not recommend missing it.

The movie is a perfect hardcopy of typical US big budget dramas with some terror factor - pride and fight story. Switch the fire with - for example - struggling with stopping a comet and you've got the very same movie :)

Watchable however, nice blockbuster.