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.

Greengrass's genius deserts him in this clichéd & stodgy retelling of the devastating US wildfires - The Lost Bus review by Timmy B

Paul Greengrass is a director/storyteller who, when he is working at the peak of his powers, is hands down one of the all-time greats. He has directed 2 of my Top 10 all-time favourite films (United 93 & The Bourne Supremacy) and has spawned many imitators such as Peter Berg, whose films Deepwater Horizon and Lone Survivor can stand toe-to-toe with Greengrass's output. In his films, there was always an insistence on authenticity, facts and genuine drama. And whilst that started to slip with films like 22 July, I still gave it 4*. And having written the above, I thought it would be impossible for him to make something as bland, formulaic and straight-up rubbish as The Lost Bus. But unfortunately we are either in the sagging middle of his career, or the nosedive of his filmmaking abilities.

This is a fictionalized version of the evacuation of multiple schoolchildren during the 2018 California wildfires which devastated massive areas of the US State. When it became clear the fire department could not manage the fires, the order to evacuate was given. However, a number of school kids were at risk of being left behind. They are then rescued by Kevin McKay, who along with their teacher Mary, attempts to drive them out of the state amidst thousands of fleeing residents.

The single biggest issue with this film is quite simply the pacing & characterisation in the script. In terms of characters, we are literally in Cliché 101 territory. Kevin McKay is the standard stock character with the stereotypical falling-apart life: divorced, penniless, a son who hates him, the nagging ex on the phone, a sick dog being put down and a general sense of "the good guy" who just can't catch a break. But what makes this not only bizarre but also unforgivable is firstly I didn't think Greengrass could create a character like this if he tried, but that he lumbers Matthew McConaughey (one of the best actors to bring a spit & sawdust character to life,) with this rubbish.

In one of the early scenes, which attempts to give a snapshot of McKay's life, McConaughey confronts his son (played in a strange twist by his real-life son,) over his poor life choices. This ends with the inevitable "I hate you!" being screamed at him, followed by the camera in a close-up shot of him forcing out tears, which is meant to make us as an audience totally buy into this cardboard cutout scenario. This is so far removed from what I would expect from Greengrass that I wondered whether I was inadvertently watching Hollyoaks instead...

And things don't improve with the scenes involving the fire department coordination effort. In United 93, the military/crisis room scenes create tension you could cut with a knife, delivered by predominantly the actual military personnel there on 9/11. Here, all nuance has gone out of the window and what it actually looks like is a combination of a Michael Bay/Roland Emmerich film, with different players either shouting or delivering exposition whilst waving maps around. This should be Greengrass's sweet spot, but we are in a different film.

Then when the action switches to the bus, the film becomes a one-location movie with a load of child actors who have been encouraged to act scared whilst stunt performers wave different forms of fire around the windows. Ferrera is given a thankless role as the uptight teacher who one minute loudly insists on following a set route, then the next realising that by doing that, everyone will be incinerated. There is some attempt to build a camaraderie with McConaughey, but this totally fails.

I watched for close to an hour before giving up. And it put me at a loss, because if I was to summarise this, it just looks like a commercial sell-out, with Apple offering Greengrass a shed load of money and an A-Lister, and ending up with a film which if you took out the swearing would be shown on the afternoon slot on Channel 5...