Tagline: Their greatest fight… is saving one of their own.
What does it take to be the man who runs headlong into a burning building when everyone else is trying to get out?
Ladder 49 is a moving look at how extraordinary heroes emerge out of ordinary lives, relationships and dreams. Set against a busy Baltimore engine company, the film peers into the private world of a typical urban firehouse and exposes the often hidden human element that lies behind the familiar headlines of firefighters battling furious blazes.
It does so by probing one emblematic fireman’s story – from his gonzo drive to join the brotherhood of firefighters and his first encounter with the woman who will become the love of his life; to the harrowing shifts that keep him from home, the conflicting emotions that grip him as he starts a family and the bold rescues that are the job’s true reward. A starkly intimate homage to the everyday sacrifices of firefighters, Ladder 49 also reveals that behind every person who selflessly saves lives are many others who make it possible.
Ladder 49 enters the life of devoted firefighter Jack Morrison (Joaquin Phoenix) as it hangs in the balance. In his zeal to help rescue a trapped civilian, Jack has been swallowed deep inside a warehouse now transformed into a furnace of snarling flames, impenetrable black smoke and collapsing debris. Cut off from all help, Jack fights for survival, while outside his mentor and Fire Chief, Mike Kennedy (John Travolta), battles to get his best friend out alive. As the two men make a desperate last gambit, Jack reflects, moment by moment, year by year, on how he got himself into this predicament.
Starting with the day he first met then-Captain Kennedy and joined the Baltimore Fire Department, Jack journeys back in time to reveal a gripping account of a hero-in-themaking. He recalls his initiation into the close-knit, prank-filled, courage-fed band of brothers at the firehouse, and the discovery of his own deeply held compulsion to save lives. But beyond the thrills and excitement of fighting fires, also lies something else: the powerful bonds of friendship with his fellow firefighter Tommy Drake (Morris Chestnut) and the enduring romance that he has fought to keep alive with his equally strong wife Linda (Jacinda Barrett). Pushed to the limits of loyalty and courage, Jack holds tight to indelible memories as he waits for his own rescue.
Into the Fire: The Making of a Different Kind of Firefighting Movie
In the wake of the sacrifices and tragedies of 9/11, Americans have never been more acutely aware of the honorable and heroic men and women who serve as firefighters in every community. And yet, few people really know the essence of their everyday lives. Firehouses are private places, the walls of which are rarely breached by outsiders. Nor is much known about the lives behind firemen: the children, wives, families and friends who stand by them as they take on one of the modern world’s most dangerous, demanding and essential professions.
For this reason, producer Casey Silver wanted to approach the subject of firefighters in a way that had never been done before cinematically. Silver envisioned a film that would explore in a stark, candid style the strong traditions, intense pressures, tight bonds of friendship, innate sense of duty, need for family love and ability to face heartbreak that hold firemen together on a daily basis.
“I wanted to make a firefighting movie in an unsentimental, honest way that would celebrate the dignity and nobility of these guys,” Silver states. “I was thinking of a film that would, at its core, be about characters and human emotions, but at the same time would capture the dramatic spectacle and suspense of firefighting.”
He continues: “So with these ingredients in mind, I brought the idea to screenwriter Lewis Colick. I told Lewis I wanted to explore firefighters from an entirely new angle, not from the usual thriller or adventure perspective, but instead taking a very truthful, noholds-barred view into their world. I asked him to go as far into the firefighters’ reality as possible and to focus on their families – not just as the wives who simply kiss their men goodbye, but as a central part of their lives, ambitions and motivation. The idea was to give a real sense of these two powerful families that sustain firefighters – their brothers on the job and their wives and children at home.”
Colick, whose previous work includes the civil rights drama “Ghosts of Mississippi” and the cop thriller “Unlawful Entry,” began by doing extensive research into the everyday lives of urban firemen as well as firemen’s wives, interviewing dozens about every aspect of their experience – from their wildest stories to their most closely held fears. He was overwhelmed by the emotional nature of what he learned but the biggest challenge lay in searching for the best way to turn all he learned into one man’s story.
At last, Colick came up with an unconventional narrative structure which would allow him to address the multiple themes he uncovered: he wove a kind of tapestry around the attempted rescue of a typically devoted, happily married, fire rescue veteran named Jack Morrison. “With Jack, I wanted to create a guy who would be symbolic of a certain kind of fireman I got to know – a good-hearted family man who loves his friends, loves his wife, but, when that bell rings, is ready to risk it all, no matter what, to save somebody he doesn’t even know,” says Colick.
The screenwriter continues: “Creating Jack gave me a chance to reveal what a fireman’s life is really like. Because a lot of it is just waiting around for a fire, playing games, pulling pranks, shooting the breeze, but then it’s punctuated by these highly dramatic events that can change other people’s lives and affect you forever. I thought having Jack look back on his life would give us a chance to tell a lot of the great stories I heard about of life-altering fires and near-miraculous rescues. It was also a chance to have him look back at why he became a fireman in the first place, what it means to him, and most of all, how he has managed to juxtapose the incredible risk of a deadly job with his familycentered personal life.”
Ladder 49 (2004)
Directed by: Jay Russell
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, John Travolta, Jacinda Barrett, Billy Burke, Jay Hernandez, Balthazar Getty, Tim Guinee, Brooke Hamlin, Robert Lewis, Kevin Daniels
Screenplay by: Lewis Colick
Production Design by: Tony Burrough
Cinematography by: James L. Carter
Film Editing by: Bud S. Smith, M. Scott Smith
Costume Design by: Renee Ehrlich Kalfus
Set Decoration by: Maggie Martin
Art Direction by: Gregory Bolton, Kevin Constant
Music by: William Ross
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for intense fire and rescue situations, language.
Distributed by: Buena Vista Pictures
Release Date: October 1, 2004
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