

She has her own business working her farm and training horses. He’s a likable guy who has a wife, Amanda (Jennifer Connelly), who loves him but doesn’t live her life around the fact that her husband fights wildfires. Yet our lead character Eric Marsh (Josh Brolin) isn’t an unbelievable character seeking redemption. On paper, a movie like Only the Brave would be a movie filled with clichéd characterization and a predictable outcome.

As wrong as I was back when that franchise first premiered, this is a rule I tend to forget.

And yet, we have the Fast and the Furious franchise where the first installment was very much that template. For instance, I would say it’s a bad idea to start a billion-dollar franchise based on Point Break but with cars. In film school, you learn that there is no such thing as a “bad idea,” only bad execution.
