Backdraft [DVD] [1991]

Backdraft may be a glorified soap opera but it is still the best film about firemen ever committed to celluloid.
Finely acted by all involved and with a top notch supporting cast. The story although mirroring every cop drama ever made runs along nicely giving you enough twists to throw you off the scent and also to talk about long after the final credits have rolled.

What helps Backdraft stand head and shoulders above it's competitors though is the fire itself, the special effects are excellent. Becoming an integral supporting character, Howard directs the flames as if they were another actor and as fire weaves its magic you can't help but be drawn into the plot.

Despite his oscar successes since this film. Backdraft still remains director Ron Howard's finest moment.

Backdraft has some of the most impressive fire scenes ever shot and some daring stunt work (three of the leads, Kurt Russell, Scott Glenn and William Baldwin, are actually billed as stuntmen), but unfortunately it's wrapped up in a trite two-brothers-at-each-other's-throats plot that keeps it from being anything more than a high-priced soap opera with burning buildings. And, it has to be said, it looks a lot less impressive on the small screen than it did on the big one. Despite the ostensibly impressive ensemble cast, some of the supporting performances are weak, with Jennifer Jason Leigh proving big time that she really can't play `normal' while Donald Sutherland's Hannibal Firelighter is too Looney Tunes to convince even in his brief screen time, while Baldwin is a considerably less compelling leading man than Russell but gets the lion's share of the screen time anyway. The result is a modestly entertaining but entirely predictable studio picture that plays everything but the conflagrations safe.

The original UK DVD was disappointingly bare-bones, but the Blu-ray release includes all the extras from the US two-disc DVD special edition. While many of the plethora of deleted scenes are just brief trims or purely redundant, it seems that a lot of the murder mystery plot and much of Robert De Niro's lazy turn as an arson investigator also hit the cutting room floor, alongside a couple of good fraternal confrontations, but there's little to imply that a better film was left on the cutting room floor. There's a good selection of featurettes as well to make up for the original bare-bones release, though it's disappointing that the two good theatrical trailers aren't included in the set. Picture quality on the Blu-ray is certainly an improvement over the DVD without the kind of excessive DNR problems that some early Universal Blu-ray titles like Tremors were notorious for.

Directed by Ron Howard starring Kurt Russell, William Baldwin, Robert De Niro, Donald Sutherland and Jennifer Jason Leigh, without doubt, for me, the stars of the film are the fire and special effects! The story about the firefighters was interesting and gave some fascinating insights into why some exceptional and brave people decide to devote their lives and, in extreme cases, give their lives to firefighting.

Having the DVD (with a good set of bonus material listed above) allows me to freeze and stop-action the fire sequences, showing clearly the awesome destructive power of fire and the creative and technical expertise which created the effects.

I know this is not why I should have enjoyed the film (particularly in the cinema when the sound effects were so powerful) and that I should have been paying more attention to the storyline but, there it is. The fire is the star and, ever since, I have appreciated our firefighters so much more.