If you pack all the clichés about city firefighters into 105 minutes; you have Ladder 49.<br /><br />It has a story but is highly clouded by all the clichés. It turns it into movie that with every event; becomes so predictable it's not worth watching. There is no depth to the story and even the acting seems superficial.<br /><br />It looked like it wanted to be a tribute to firefighters but ended up being boring and pretentious. The parallel between Jack Morrison being fatally trapped beneath an inaccessible part of a building and firefighters being trapped beneath the rubble of the Twin Towers was all too obvious.<br /><br />It doesn't compare to movies like Backdraft and certainly does not set an example for future movies about fire personnel.