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- Cat.no: UDR 90006
- Cert: 15
- Running time: 132 minutes
- Year: 1991
- Pressing: 1999
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 16 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Surround
- Languages: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish
- Subtitles: 9 languages available
- Widescreen: 2.10:1 (Super 35)
- 16:9-Enhanced: No
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £19.99
- Extras : Scene index, Biographies, Filmographies, Production Notes
Director:
- Ron Howard
(Apollo 13, Cocoon, Far and Away, Night Shift, The Paper, Parenthood, Ransom, Splash
)
Producer:
- Richard B. Lewis, Pen Densham and John Watson
Screenplay:
- Gregory Widen
Music:
- Hans Zimmer
Cast:
- Stephen McCaffrey: Kurt Russell (Breakdown, Escape From L.A., Escape From New York, Executive Decision)
Brian McCaffrey: William Baldwin (Born on the Fourth of July, Fair Game, Internal Affairs, Sliver, Three of Hearts)
Donald Rimgale: Robert De Niro (Awakenings, Backdraft, Brazil, A Bronx Tail, Cape Fear, Casino, Cop Land, The Deerhunter, The Fan, The Godfather Part II,Goodfellas, Great Expectations (1997), Guilty By Suspicion, Heat, Jackie Brown, Jacknife, The King Of Comedy, Mad Dog and Glory, Marvin’s Room,Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Mean Streets, Midnight Run, The Mission, New York New York, Night and the City,Raging Bull, Ronin, Sleepers, Taxi Driver, This Boy’s Life, The Untouchables)
Ronald Bartel: Donald Sutherland (The Assignment, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Dirty Dozen, Disclosure, Fallen, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, JFK, Klute, MASH, Lock Up, National Lampoon’s Animal House, Ordinary People, Outbreak,Six Degrees of Separation, A Time To Kill)
Jennifer Vaitkus: Jennifer Jason Leigh (The Big Picture, Dolores Claiborne, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, The Hitcher, The Hudsucker Proxy, Kansas City, Last Exit To Brooklyn, Miami Blues, Mrs Parker and the Vicious Circle, Rush,Short Cuts, Single White Female, A Thousand Acres, Washington Square)
John Adcox: Scott Glenn (Absolute Power, Carla’s Song, Firestorm, The Hunt For Red October, The Right Stuff, Silence of the Lambs)
Helen McCaffrey: Rebecca De Mornay (Guilty as Sin, The Hand That Rocks The Cradle, Risky Business, The Three Musketeers (1993))
Alderman Marty Swayzak: J.T. Walsh (The Big Picture, Breakdown, A Few Good Men, Hoffa, Needful Things, The Negotiator, Nixon, Pleasantville, Red Rock West, The Russia House, Sniper, TV: “Dark Skies”)
Backdraftis the term given to a build of gas and the way it explodes with rage once given a hintof oxygen. It’s this type of incident that an arsonist is suspected of setting up allaround the city of Chicago.
Stephen (Kurt Russell) and Brian McCaffrey (William Baldwin) are warringbrothers, placed on the same team at the former’s insistence since his brother is freshout of graduation. After many part-time jobs, Brian wants to see if he’s cut out fora career as a firefighter since you can appreciate him being put off for life when,twenty years ago as a young boy, he saw his own father being killed in the line of duty.
Robert De Niro is arson investigator Donald Rimgale, nicknamed “Shadow”, convincedthat these extreme fires that are breaking out are as a direct result of arson andhe’s determined to get to the truth; Scott Glenn is an experienced firemanwho has been around the block several times and has worked with both generations ofthe McCaffrey family; Donald Sutherland is in jail for arson and his cameoproves his character isn’t quite all there as he explains his love for creating fireto appear where it shouldn’t do; Jennifer Jason Leigh was the love of Brian’slife six years ago before he left town. Now he’s been back, perhaps they’ll get backtogether, but what won’t help is the fact that she’s working for Alderman Marty Swayzak(the late, great J.T. Walsh), a man running for town mayor and likely to getit too considering the cutbacks he’s made have impressed those in authority, despitehim trying to cover up the fact that those cutbacks have led to three people beingkilled while on duty. Finally, Rebecca De Mornay plays Helen, Stephen’sestranged wife and the film also follows their attempts to patch things up.
There’s not a single duff performance to be found here in a film that’s well writtenand directed, with Baldwin and Russell convincing as the brothers McCaffrey. Theeffects are incredible as the fire explodes around town in scenes that were deemedby real-life firefighters as true and realistic.
The picture is mostly free of obvious artifacts, but there is a level of grain presentthroughout the film. When fire explodes, it still looks good from the usual viewingdistance. However, it does lose a pointfor not being anamorphic and there’s no reason for it not to be. It certainly makeshistory for Columbia as being the first widescreen title that isn’t enhanced forwidescreen televisions and as such there’s no way you can zoom the picture in toalmost-fill a widescreen TV while viewing the subtitles, since they appear under theimage.
The film was presented in 2.35:1 at the cinema, but this widescreen print is framedat approximately 2.10:1. Having been filmed in Super-35, you don’t lose any sideinformation, but gain some picture height. The average bitrate is a very good7.75Mb/s, occasionally peaking over 9Mb/s.
The sound quality, unlike the picture, is first-rate. Clear dialogue, the creepymovement of the flames, some superb songs fromBruce Hornsby and the Range (The Show Goes On and Set Me In Motion),The Smithereens (A Girl Like You),Cream (Sunshine of Your Love) andEdwin Starr (War).Couple this with powerful score from Hans Zimmer, the main theme from which Irecently heard of Classic FM and it still hadn’t lost the impact. In fact, it made me wishthe disc had come with an isolated score but then it doesn’t have much in the way ofextras. The sound is available in English with a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack.
When designing the new ACME burglar alarms,the inventor forgot to carry the one.
Extras : Chapters :A mere 16 chapters, the usual from Universal DVDs, cover the 2hr+ film and it coulddo with at least twice that. There’s no trailer to be found. Languages and Subtitles :The primary language, English, is available in Dolby Digital 5.1 while the remainder,French, German, Italian and Spanish are in Dolby Digital 2.0 (Dolby Surround).Subtitles are available in English, Portuguese, Danish, Finnish, Swedish,Norwegian, Dutch, Polish and Czech. Filmographies, Biographies and Production notes :Biographies with accompanying filmographies are available for most of the principalactors listed at the top of this review apart from J.T. Walsh, but with an additionfor director Ron Howard. A few pages of production notes are also included. Menu :Similar to the first batch of Universal releases, the menu is static and silentwith a picture mirroring the cover on the main menu while other menus containpictures of cast members. On playing the disc you see the Universal logo and acopyright message before the main menu appears.
Backdraft is an excellent film, but to justify an eight-year old film as afull price DVD release, it should have come complete with an anamorphic print andcopious extras such as a director’s commentary which would have given an insightinto how the fire scenes were created and the aforementioned isolated music score.Hence, it’s difficult to recommend this DVD as it stands at this price and ananamorphic release is on the cards for owners of Region 1-capable machines laterthis year.
DVD Trivia: Kurt Russell also plays his own father in the opening scene.
FILM : ****½PICTURE QUALITY: **½SOUND QUALITY: *****EXTRAS: *——————————-OVERALL: ***
Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 1999.
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.