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Nick’s Flix

Accuracy in Hollywood, a public safety paradox

 

 

There are two kinds of audiences when it comes to movies that center on public safety careers.

One kind, which constitutes the vast majority of viewers, watches a movie about police, or firefighters or EMTs, and thinks “wow, how interesting — this is an adequate story to capture my interest for 90-150 minutes and I am therefore entertained.”

The other kind of audience sees one such movie and thinks, “that’s not how any of this happens.”

That second group, as you might expect, is comprised mostly of people who have had first-hand experience in the job depicted on screen. When a cop watches Hot Fuzz, for example, it’s unlikely he or she sees their own experience reflected in the script unless they have a vendetta against geese (but who doesn’t?)

So do movies about first responders exist that don’t irritate actual first responders? Or, in other words, are there movies the rest of us can watch to get an actual sense of what the job’s like? To be fair, all movies have some element of sensationalism and melodrama — they are movies, after all, and not corporate training videos. But accuracy is a spectrum, and there are plenty of movies out there that fall closer to the “true-to-life” side of that spectrum.

 

 

POLICE

When surveying police officers, you’ll get a number of responses to the question of “what’s the most accurate portrayal of cops in a movie?”

Most seem to agree, however, that 2012’s End of Watch, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena, is closest when it comes to accuracy. While it might not reflect the experiences of police officers around semi-rural Michigan, End of Watch is famous for its attention to detail and faithfulness to the true stories on which it’s based.

Gyllenhaal underwent five months of training for the role, and the movie is considered to be one of the more accurate options around, even if it doesn’t involve seeing officers doing paperwork for hours.

 

 

FIRE

Adding “too much Hollywood” to a movie about public safety is a common complaint among those experienced in the job being portrayed, and that’s true with movies about firefighting.

While you’ll get a few firefighters who’ll swear that Backdraft is a solid portrayal of the profession, most just appreciate it for its special effects, despite some glaring inaccuracies.

That said, the movie many firefighters point to as the closest they’ve seen to depicting what the job’s really like is 2004’s Ladder 49. Like End of Watch, the main actors in Ladder 49, Joaquin Phoenix and John Travolta, went through strenuous training before filming in order to more adequately portray firefighters, even riding along with crews on calls in Baltimore.

 

 

EMTs

The pick for most accurate movie about emergency medicine and the professionals who provide it is 1999’s Bringing Out the Dead, starring Nicolas Cage and directed by Martin Scorsese.

Sure, at one point Tom Sizemore’s character terrorizes people with a baseball bat, which hopefully isn’t a realistic depiction of an EMT, but the mental toll of the job is explored throughout the movie very well. It’s also not an easy watch, especially if you or someone you know has had experience in EMS.

For something much lighter, I do want to recommend Bloods, a 30-minute British comedy series now streaming on Hulu. It may not be accurate to life, but it’s certainly funny, and could make for a good palette-cleanser after the relentless despair of Bringing Out the Dead.

 

 

DISPATCH

While there was a small chance we could have gone with another Jake Gyllenhaal movie here — The Guilty, from last year, stars the actor as a disgraced cop working 911 dispatch as a punishment for some reason — I cannot in good conscience recommend it, for two reasons. One, it’s not accurate to the job at all, and two, it’s also just not a good movie.

The reason I even mention it is because unlike other public safety jobs, dispatchers don’t have nearly the breadth of options when it comes to movies about their profession.

Instead, we’ll go with The Guilty — but not the American remake. The original, released in 2018, follows the same general plot, with a kidnapped woman calling in and interacting with a dispatcher. But where Gyllenhaal’s version leans heavily into overwrought drama, the Danish original keeps things more realistic.