Solemn post-9/11 tribute to firefighters, although these are Baltimoreans rather than New Yorkers. The central one, Joaquin Phoenix, lies injured and trapped in a burning building as his life flashes before him. Or to be more exact, he consciously flashes back on his life at length and at intervals -- his first day on the job, his first fire, his first love, his first funeral, his first rescue, his first-born, etc. -- as he recovers his strength and struggles to survive. John Travolta, at maximum charm as the station Captain and later citywide Chief, joins the struggle from the outside. Director Jay Russell treats this fraternity with an adulation that, if aimed in another direction, would have embarrassed to death Jesus and the twelve Apostles, and would have driven to drink Jimmy Cagney, Pat O'Brien, Lee Tracy, and the rest of the regulars in Warner Brothers working-man films of the Thirties. (2004) — Duncan Shepherd
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