Ladder 49

It's been more than a month since I've seen a movie in the theatre. Something about too many time commitments, too little time. So Sunday seemed like a good day to go. I naturally did not have my work done and hadn't written anything in my current novel, but damnit, I was sick of watching movies go by without my seeing them.

So we chose Ladder 49, despite the fact that other movies that had been out for longer were still calling to me, though their cries came with little enthusiasm. The loudest was Cellular, but its bellow for attention was quickly cancelled out when my wife said she preferred Ladder 49.

It's a well-put-together movie. It starts with the ending scene, essentially. Joaquin Phoenix's character Jack Morrison is saving a man from a burning building. The fire is intense and will destroy the building, which is monstrous--some sort of factory. The man and Morrison are on the twelfth floor and Morrison has to lower him down the outside of the building to a cherry picker where two other firefighters await. As he lowers him, the floor beneath him collapses, and he falls two or three stories down. The rest of the movie contains flashbacks to his joining the fire department, finding his wife, having his two children, losing his best friend, taking a more dangerous position at the fire dept., all interspersed with the opening scene as he fights to make it to firefighters who are searching for him.

Now, I enjoyed the movie. I liked the way it was assembled with the flashbacks. I thought Joaquin's acting was great--I personally think he'll be a modern day Hoffman/DeNiro after a few more films. But I don't know that I liked the movie. The ending, though wildly foreshadowed, was too disappointing for me. Of course, it's the kind of ending I would write in my own work. It's the ending that was anticipated. But still, I didn't want it to happen.

It was better than watching Law and Order reruns on TNT, though.