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True-life ‘Only the Brave’ better when it focuses on firefighters’ lives, not their deaths

The spirit of the Granite Mountain Hotshots — the Arizona crew who in 2013 were caught in the deadliest incident for U.S. firefighters since the 9/11 attacks — lives on in “Only the Brave,” a drama that captures the group’s camaraderie, self-sacrifice and unspoken heroism.

Because the movie is based on true events, complaining about spoilers is rather useless. It’s also, for most of the movie, beside the point, because director Joseph Kosinski focuses more on the lives the men of the Granite Mountain crew lived than on the way 19 of them died.

The team, the movie tells us, was a tight-knit group of men fighting fires for the city of Prescott, Ariz.