Firefighters deserve to be canonized by Hollywood just like everybody else, and so what if it’s exploitation?

Not to wax cynical or anything, but Hollywood happens to be founded on a long, fine tradition of exploiting audiences. People only bristle at that fact when a movie such as “Ladder 49” and a tragedy such as 9/11 make the arrangement a bit too tidy for comfort.

Shoddy exploitation, on the other hand, is inexcusable.

Consider “Ladder 49.” As a tribute the bravery and sacrifice of the men in question, it lacks sophistication and dramatic sizzle. As a topical study of nature’s most feared element, it lacks beauty and visceral impact. It lacks and lacks and lacks, and firefighters deserve better.

Joaquin Phoenix (“The Village”) is the very picture of simple, selfless virtue as Jack Morrison, a veteran Baltimore firefighter who suffers a horrific fall while battling a blaze in a waterfront warehouse. Trapped in the inferno, his body bruised and broken, Jack relives in flashback the people and experiences that defined his career.

It's the same sort of wormhole narrative technique used by Sam Raimi in "For Love of the Game"; here employed by director Jay Russell, whose capacity for wholesome sentimentality reached critical limits in "My Dog Skip" (2000) and "Tuck Everlasting" (2002).

Ultimately, “Ladder 49” will be remembered as one of Phoenix's lesser efforts. As Jack, the "Gladiator" actor is asked to age more than a decade over the course of the story without the benefit of cosmetics. His solution: Play Jack like a stammering 12-year-old, particularly in the early scenes where the character is an eager rookie.

Waddling around the firehouse wearing an expression of starry-eyed astonishment, Jack has the emotional depth and conversation skills of a sweet-natured moron. Luckily, it doesn't crimp his love life — soon after meeting a pretty blonde named Linda (former “Real World” castie Jacinda Barrett) at the supermarket, Jack is happily married.

Russell and screenwriter Lewis Colick (“October Sky”) have created a movie of uncommon linear focus. There are no subplots, intrigues or genuine conflicts; instead, we get a poem about life in the firehouse — the pranks, the camaraderie, the petty squabbles — and a generally pulse-deadening collection of rescue scenes.

John Travolta (“Pulp Fiction”) plays Jack’s friendly, fun-loving station chief, but the role doesn't take. Maybe it's the fact that we've seen Travolta don one-too-many pairs of polyester shorts, but he just seems wrong as a down-and-
dirty blue collar guy.

To the filmmakers' credit, a portrait of brotherhood emerges from the firehouse scenes, a culture of sacrifice, honor and well-deserved drafts at the pub.

Briefly, we also get glimmers of what might be psychological depth. There's a nice hospital room scene of Jack consoling a wounded mate (Morris Chestnut of "Boyz N the Hood") who worries that his children will reject his burned face. Jack wrestles with his own mortality when his best friend (Billy Burke from TV's "Wonderland") is swallowed whole by a collapsing rooftop.

Ultimately, Jack has a crisis of faith regarding his role as a hero, but the consequent spats with his wife and bedside heart-to-hearts with his kids feel strangely hollow, like some item ticked off on the director’s to-do list.

Russell’s earnest thank-you card to the American firefighter lacks something else: the primal excitement of fire itself. Unlike Ron Howard’s near-fetishistic “Backdraft” (1991), the flames in “Ladder 49” seem inanimate and overly-contained.

We never get that acrid, coppery taste of adrenaline — and that’s at least as important to the culture of firefighting as the bucket of ice-water that Jack's buddies jokingly dump on his head.