First off, I'm not a firefighter, but I'm in some kind of para-firefighting unit (the guys who get called if an earthquake hits and the real firefighters need more people for SAR), so I had some training and simulation but I have no real-life experience.
But still, there are some points one notices as totally unbelievable. I can understand that they removed the mouth/nose-pieces of the masks and that there is not enough smoke, because the public would otherwise see nothing. But some things defy logic:
- No second mask attached to the oxygen. How the hell do you want to rescue people trough the smoke without one?
- Rappelling people. No, it's not done like that. I'd be screaming too if somebody hitched a rope around me in that fashion and hung me from a building. If I could scream, that is, and not pass out from want of air because the rope squeezes my lungs. The second time when they're abseiling Jack it's better but still weird.
- "Aim high". No, you bloody don't. You always fight fire from as low as possible. You don't fight want to sprinkle flames, you'll want to extinguish the fire, and that's below the flames.
- No discipline. They're running around like chicken. And they shout all the time, instead of using radio, and keeping discipline.
- No tactics. Why don't they work in teams of at least two? You still can get separated, but it takes much more than if everyone just scurries around alone in search for victims.
- Do they really enter buildings without bringing water? I Europe, firefighters would never enter a burning building without.
- Firefighters on the roof. WTF do they think they're doing there without security lines or water? - Exploding rooms. Wood and brick does not "explode suddenly".
The better points are actually camaraderie and the other non-firefighting parts of the movie. It's a lot of kitsch, but that's alright. I'll give it a point for this.