They were mostly gung ho, can-do types with a penchant for horsing around and downing a few brewskies, but all that would immediately be put aside when danger called. Other members of the team are played by James Badge Dale and Taylor Kitsch.The members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots were all just regular guys, but they were also members of a true elite, the creme-de-la-creme of a fraternity of men who risked their lives containing fast-spreading wildfires. The unit is supervised by Eric Marsh, a veteran firefighter in his early 40s he’s a man with a checkered past, played with laconic resolve by Josh Brolin.

The story the movie tells, at a leisurely pace over the course of 133 minutes, is one of hardworking, hard-partying young men finding a sense of family, discipline and purpose in a firefighting crew created by the city of Prescott, Ariz. Their homegrown spirit is so appealing, and their history so affecting, that you want to overlook the shortcomings of a dutiful, derivative script, with its several inspirational strands and dearth of essential details. To dramatize the courage and dedication of the crews that fight these conflagrations, the film celebrates the Granite Mountain Hotshots, an elite group of firefighters that faced its greatest challenge on a hill near Yarnell, Ariz., in the summer of 2013.

‘Only the Brave” could hardly be more timely, since its larger subject is the wildfires that have been bringing grief and devastation to vast areas of the nation with what seems to be increasing frequency.

Only the brave