Title – The Lost Bus (2025)

Director – Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Ultimatum)

Cast – Matthew McConaughey, America Ferrera, Yul Vazquez, Ashlie Atkinson

Plot – Based on a true story, follows the exploits of down on his luck school bus driver Kevin McKay (McConaughey) and dedicated school teacher Mary Ludwig (Ferrera) who battle to save a busload of school children in the midst of a terrifying Californian wildfire.  

“We’re being damn fools, that’s the truth”

Review by Eddie on 07/10/2025

Apple’s latest big budget original release The Lost Bus marks the return of star Matthew McConaughey to the feature film space for the first time in front of camera since 2019’s cult favourite The Gentleman, while also marking director Paul Greengrass’s first feature 2020’s Covid-19 affected News of the World.

A talented duo, with both notable Hollywood names the type of industry players general audiences would love to see more of, there’s an expectation here for Bus to meet before the titles have even begun to roll and while this decently budgeted true-life dramatization of the deadly Californian wildfires of 2018 is always watchable, it’s the type of middle ground film that’s hard to get overly excited about.

Clocking in at over two hours, Greengrass does manage to bring along some of that same documentary like energy to proceedings that he made his name with with the likes of United 93 and Bourne Supremacy/Ultimatum while McConaughey doesn’t stretch himself but provides typically strong stoic presence to his role of down on his luck bus driver Kevin McKay but overall Bus just feels like more of a box ticking exercise rather than anything else while always losing focus in its latter stages as it gets more and more farfetched.

Engaging most early on when the early stages of the wildfire raged at a seemingly unstoppable pace towards civilian centres and a collection of various players including America Ferrera’s school teacher Mary Ludwig, Yul Vazquez’s fire chief Martinez and Ashlie Atkinson’s bus coordinator Ruby Bishop get caught up in the unpredictable events, Bus begins to give way too a more predictable and paint by numbers affair that while at times gripping, is for the most part more like a real life thriller play by play.

One of the other struggles Bus has is too find a real emotional core tying everything together.

While attempting to find the emotive heartbeat with Kevin’s broken life and deteriorating relationship with his teenage son, Bus never manages to give us something to truly care about and while we as viewers want to see a busload of children make it through the fires and into the waiting arms of their parents, for Bus to transcend its relatively cookie cutter approach to proceedings it needed to give us more in its human-centred angles.

It’s great to see Greengrass back behind the camera and McConaughey back in front of it but while the two talented creatives have crafted something here that’s more than tolerable, it’s a shame they weren’t able to give us something special, something both men have been able to do on multiple occasions in times past.

Final Say –

A solid if entirely unremarkable Apple original, The Lost Bus is a thriller that acts as a decent time filler but considering the talent involved that’s an undeniably disappointing result in the grand scheme of things.

3 fire extinguishers out of 5