UNIVERSITY OF SANTO TOMAS

Faculty of Engineering
Civil Engineering Department
1st Semester SY 2019-2020

A REACTION PAPER ON LADDER 49

PITA, RAFAEL CHRISTIAN R.

5CE-B

The movie, Ladder 49 is all about a life of a firefighter where Jack Morrison started as
a rookie in Baltimore City fire department. Where he was assigned to Fire Station as a pipe-
man where he holds the water nozzle and sprays it to the fire for Ladder 49. Jack has been
doing great since he started, he saved a man and woman from a burning building. While
waiting, Ladder 49 has been called to a four- alarm-fire in a 20-storey building. This all
started when Jack Morrison tried to rescue a man trapped in the burning building where he
falls through the building. Now Jack is the one that Chief Mike Kennedy his former Captain
who needs to be rescued. Chief Kennedy managed the rescue operation. Both their decision
making was put into test because there was a fire between rescuers and Jack. In the end, Jack
sacrificed himself so that the other rescuers will not be harmed.
It all talks about decision making where some scenes in the movie their decision was
to save lives of civilian even loosing firefighter’s life means nothing. Ladder 49 wants to
honor firefighters for their courage and selflessness. Where saving lives is their main priority.
Even taking a firefighter’s life is forgotten and saving lives is the main goal. The action
scenes convey this effectively even if a couple of them are over reacting. Yet at every turn
Ladder 49 undercut itself. The firemen in the film were screwing off on the job because of
undisciplined behavior except for the rare times when they go out on a call. When they’re off
the job the film portrays them getting hammered with regularity and ignoring family and
friends’ warranted concerns for their safety. All that in their mind was saving lives. A more
complex take on the material might have made it work, but here lie the characters are
propped up to fit our vision of the idea of saving lives.