Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: Backdraft (1991) - Ron Howard's giant, stupid Chicago-set firefighter movie

4/28/2014

Backdraft (1991) - Ron Howard's giant, stupid Chicago-set firefighter movie

♥♥

French poster for Ron Howard's Backdraft

QUICK REVIEW:

A pair of brothers in the Chicago Fire Dept. walk in their father's footsteps, when a series of terrible fires are set off by a crazed arsonist.
Gregory Widen's (Highlander (1986)) script is so idiotically thick with clichés, and Ron Howard's (Frost/Nixon (2008)) direction so disengaged and loose that not even the many fine actors involved can save the messy Backdraft.
William Baldwin's (The Squid and the Whale (2005)) character - one of the two leads - seems even stupider than himself, and the ending of the film is overly long and twaddling in sentimentality.
Backdraft has solid photography, - by Mikael Salomon (Hard Rain (1998), director), - and impressive fire scenes, but it's a bad film.

Related review:

Ron Howard: A Beautiful Mind (2001) - John Nash given the Epic Treatment

Brothers (in the film) Kurt Russell and William Baldwin in their fire uniforms

Watch the overly long trailer for the overly long Backdraft here

Budget: 75 mil. $
Box office: 152.3 mil. $
= Flop

What are your thought on Backdraft?
Ron Howard has had his highs and lows; and firefighters are rarely the stuff of great movies, - what is his best and worst films in your opinion?

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

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Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

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Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

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Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

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4/28/2014

Backdraft (1991) - Ron Howard's giant, stupid Chicago-set firefighter movie

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Eagerly anticipating this week ... (16-24)

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