The Lost Bus (2025)

Truth in the Smoke - The Lost Bus review by griggs

Paul Greengrass turns real events into cinema that feels caught between chaos and control, and The Lost Bus is no exception. Based on the 2018 Camp Fire in California, it follows a group of teachers and children trapped on a school bus as the inferno closes in. It’s tense, humane, and shot with that restless handheld energy that makes every second feel lived.

Yet something’s missing. Downed power lines take the blame, while the real culprit — climate change — stays off-screen, humming beneath the smoke. It’s strange that a filmmaker so tuned to truth lets this one slide.

Still, The Lost Bus moves and disturbs in equal measure. Greengrass finds humanity amid the panic once again, even if this time the bigger picture never quite makes it into frame.

Engaging Heroism Story - The Lost Bus review by GI

In many ways this is a typical Paul Greengrass film delivered with that sense of documentary realism and the use of non actors recreating their roles from the real event on which this is based. So there's the typical big briefing scenes with a stressed boss shouting "Listen up people" at random times for example. Here we have a modern American heroism story of the little man excelling in the face of dire straits in this case the biggest wildfire in American history that killed 85 people and decimated many homes and large swathes of the countryside. It tells the story of Kevin (Matthew McConaughey), an everyman with his own personal issues, who is employed as a School Bus driver for the Californian town of Paradise. When a wildfire breaks out Kevin volunteers to collect 23 school kids whose parents are unable to get to there school to collect them. With the assistance of a teacher, Mary (America Ferrera), Kevin has to navigate through the fire dealing with armed rioters along the way. The fire is the central set piece here as you'd expect with Greengrass recreating the hellish experience and the terror that is experienced by the children. Kevin and Mary are reminiscent of the Katherine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart relationship in The African Queen (1951) although it doesn't drift into romance just healthy respect. The main issue with this film is that it glosses over the political problems and the corporate responsibility caused by the power company whose failings caused the fire. It simply goes for a straight forward tale of heroism which is fine but it does lead to a film that has a varied pacing, some solid tense scenes but is predictable and ends as you'd expect. McConaughey is solid and nuanced in the role of Kevin and the film is worth watching but it's typical of this sort of story.