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.
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