WasAnnon Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Executscan Expected more

Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

ivan_dmitriev This used to be one of my favourite movies when I was 7 years old (that is when it came out), the trouble is that I haven't watched it ever since, so when I saw it programmed on the local cable, I thought "Why not". Boy was I wrong. I should have let the doozy sleep in its grave made of fond (distorted) childhood memories.Off the bat - we start with a scene of kids playing in a firestation when a fire alarm goes off, so what do the sensible adults do -take the 4-year old (? I dunno how old is he supposed to be but he doesn't look older than 5), to a fire. Cause which four-year old didn't like to set fire to stuff? :) While the syrens go off, we're barraged with Hans Zimmer over-the-top heroic music and a triumphant ride of the firefighters through the town waving at them. The only thing the scene lacks for total cornitude is a bunch of cheerleeders in a firefighting costume waving fire-colored pom-poms at the site of the fire. That goes in my imagination as the firefighters would just ride around town blasting heroic music non-stop, then go back to the station, to get their dose of heroic exhibitionism. Blast that horn, Grant. Immediately arriving at the site of the fire the firefighting team goes to heroically save a girl who isn't poisoned sick from the fumes, and wears a pristinely pink robe (a mini-damsel in distress for our heroical Grant's dad), but it all goes to smithereens when a strategically placed gas bottle (seriously who would place a bottle in the attic in an appartment building?) explodes, cleanly killing Grant's dad while sending his firefighter's helmet neatly into the Grant"s hands, which is when Grant takes an oath to extinguish ALLL THE FIRES and goes on to psychotically snuff out gas boilers, house heater pilot lights, petroleum cracking plant furnaces, hot air balloons and campfires.... no he doesn't do that, but he might as well have, because another layer of corn gets dumped on it, when a reporter appears out of nowhere and takes celebrity shots of our determined 4-year old who'd just lost his dad (but it's not a big deal). Flash(!) forward 20 years and we're in a stereotypical bar scene where EVERYONE (including the random bar patrons) celebrate Grant's grade of 17 (our of 20? out of 100? did he pass?) for firefighting, a building blows up in a conflagration in a screen cut, but our merry firefighters are frolicking with their eternal nemesis (the trope is not subverted here) - the policemen, using the oldest trick in the book - fire hydrant. Here you can also strike a "harmless-foreign-crone-speaking-gibberish-is-comically-angry" off your Holywood bingo and get introduced to the less-than-believable paramour, who exposes the cronyism ;) of the hollywoodean Americana by having just taken a position working at the city hall (so the Grant's family and friends are controlling the police, the fire department and the city hall :). That goes only downhill from then on, and the total volume of cheese and corn forcibly extruded in all earnest (everything is VERY very serious here) onto the unsuspecting viewer is sufficient to feed a small starving african country. Other viewers have already weighted in on that (aka "Fire is a fire elemental").4 for the VFX and earnest acting, nothing for the scenario.

NateWatchesCoolMovies Ron Howard's Backdraft is all you could want in a big budget Hollywood picture, and more in the sense that it combines a handful of genres for one big opus that's bursting at it's seams with family drama, romance, mystery, psychological thrills (of the deliciously heavy handed variety) and no shortage of shit blowing up. As far as firefighter films go, this is probably where the buck stops as far as I'm concerned. Stuff like Ladder 49 came and went without much lasting impression as I'm sure the Josh Brolin one from this year will too, but Backdraft man, it's an action classic that's endured and aged remarkably well over the years. It opens with a bang as a Chicago team thunders into action set to a score by Hans Zimmer that could wake the dead. This intro serves as a showcase moment for what's to come, as we meet two brothers who are fiercely competitive, each scarred by there fireman father's (Kurt Russell) untimely demise. The older (also Russell) is a headstrong bull with self destructive tendencies, while the younger (William Baldwin) does his best to live up to the family name by struggling through the academy. That's the framework for a story that's brimming with characters and subplots, as any Hollywood epic should be. Robert Deniro steals the show as a gruff, old school arson investigator who's seen a few deadly fires in his time, and keeps a close watch on psychopath firebug Donald Sutherland, who himself gives a thoroughly chilling performance. Scott Glenn is rough 'n tough as veteran fireman Axe, Jennifer Jason Leigh is Baldwin's flame in a role that's uncharacteristically safe for the daring actress, while Rebecca De Mornay is terrific as Russell's ex-wife. Ohh and J.T. Walsh steals every scene as a dubious politician. What a cast. The film is big, bold and noisy, with a visual and auditory aesthetic that will give any home theatre system a pounding. Zimmer's score is seriously awesome, a grandiose, emotional, booming concoction that stands as both one of his best and most underrated. This is one of the old fashioned, pure bangers of unbridled cinematic escapism that can't be beat, replicated or watched too many times.

jimbo-53-186511 Firefighting brothers Stephen McCaffrey (Kurt Russell) and Brian McCaffrey (William Baldwin) and the rest of their Chicago fire department find themselves in a battle of wits with an arsonist who is manufacturing explosions which create a 'Backdraft' which kills anyone in its path. Fire investigator Donald Rimgate (Robert DeNiro) is the man responsible for tracking the arsonist down.On paper this should have worked; it has talented actors like Kurt Russell, Robert DeNiro and Donald Sutherland on board and an interesting premise which to me seemed to suggest a mix of social commentary, action and cat and mouse antics. To say that this film did not live up to my expectations would be a massive understatement because it didn't even come close....For a start, Ron Howard suffocates the film with all kinds of different themes; strained relations between brothers, strained relations between spouses/girlfriends, firefighting, investigating. Usually I like films with a wide variety of themes as invariably they have depth, complexity and give the mind something to chew on, but here Howard introduces these themes but doesn't expand upon any of them. The two firefighting brothers don't get on- why exactly? The younger brother disappeared for a number of years - where did he go and why did he disappear? The lack of clarity makes it very hard to care about or form any understanding of the brothers (them both being so unlikeable doesn't help either neither did their continuous squabbling). The melodrama between the brothers and their partners was also tiresome and uninteresting and took up far too much of the running time.Even if we focus our attention on the action then Howard failed to really engage me in what should have been an open goal; the action scenes are good at first, but they become repetitive and I was never enthralled or interested at any point during the film. The investigative side of the film (which should have been the real focus) is very choppy and Howard failed to make it interesting or engage me in that aspect of the story.The acting is a bit of a mixed bag; Kurt Russell has his usual cocksure swagger about him, but he does at least make the film fun. William Baldwin is bland and De Niro is fairly low-key (aside from one scene where he gets to flex his acting chops). Donald Sutherland is convincing as a crazy guy, but he felt more like an afterthought than anything else.However you look at Backdraft it is a poor film which has too much going on for its own good. I appreciate what firefighters do and think they are very brave so I do feel a bit bad bashing this film, but I was never given a reason to care at any point in this film and if I'm totally honest I found it pretty boring.

Tweekums The McCaffreys are a firefighting family; in 1971 Captain Dennis McCaffrey died in a fire that was witnessed by Brian, his younger son. Twenty years later Brain has joined the Chicago Fire Department; his older brother Lt Stephen "Bull" McCaffrey is unsure that Brian has what it takes so arranges for them to work together so he can keep an eye on his younger brother. Against this background a city alderman has been making cutbacks in the Fire Department which the firemen believe are putting lives in danger. There is also an unusual arsonist at work in the city; he is setting fires that kill the first person to open the door to them but are then blown out by the blast before the firemen arrive. Captain Donald "Shadow" Rimgale is investigating these fires and after one too many disagreements with his brother Brian joins his team. As they learn more about the fires and the victims it becomes apparent that the culprit could be a little too close to home.The first thing to say about this film is that the numerous fire scenes look fantastic… even if they do lack the thick smoke one would expect in such fires; obviously it wouldn't make such a good film if one couldn't see anything! The story is a good mix of firefighting action and a mystery about who is starting the fires and why. The cast is full of well know faces who do an impressive job; most notably William Baldwin and Kurt Russell as Brian and Stephen McCaffrey and Robert DeNero as Captain Rimgale. There are of course a few clichés along the way, most notably the fighting brothers who are reconciled in the face of danger at the end, but these don't really detract from ones enjoyment. Overall I'd certainly recommend this to anybody wanting a good action film; especially if you'd like to see protagonists who are something other than cops, spies or members of the military.