as much a i respect firefighter for what they do . i be unimpressed and bore with this film . the acting be ok but joaquin phoenix be a poor casting choice to say the least . what bother me the most about this film be the celtic music whine on and on and on at the bad possible time in the film . the directing and continuity be pretty bad too . spoiler for example and after phoenix character fall several story and be badly injured and he can barely move to speak to his captain on the radio . then miraculously and he manage to crawl across a huge space cover in rubble and fire to punch a man size opening in a double thickness brick wall use only a foot long piece of re bar . and to top it all off he then get ultra weak and bust up again . do anyone also notice that throughout the film and whenever you see shot of joaquin fighting fire and rescue people and there be little or no smoke in the building . i would think the smoke should be pretty thick in a flame engulf building . i also get tire of hear the search and rescue team yell i need some equipment over here . i really think i would enjoy this film but i find it to be a weak attempt at represent the true life of a fireman . the intention be there but i honestly think that this film could have be so much good . i couldn not help but think that the producer be try to meet a deadline with this film and have to rush to put it in theater . more time should have be spend on edit and ensure there be good flow to the film . the special effect be impressive in some scene but disappointing and almost ridiculous in others . kind of like a jerry bruckheimer movie . call me critical but i just can not see what so great about this movie . at least it wasn not as bad a the whole ten yard which be by far the bad film i have see in recent month . i really hope there isn not a ladder 50 in the making .