"Backdraft" is a tedious and formulaic story from which to hang its top notch cast and still amazing special effects.
Brothers, the children of a famous firefighter, feuding with each other over who the true heir to the man's name is. A corrupt bureaucrat running for mayor on a platform of cutting funding to the fire department. One of our characters a closet firebug. But who?
The older of the brothers is separated from his wife - Rebecca De Mornay - because she loves him too much to see him put himself in danger all the time. The younger of the brothers has a girl - Jennifer Jason Leigh - who doesn't seem to mind being put on hold and messed around while he works out his personal garbage: changing careers constantly because he isn't ready to face up to the true calling the movie has mapped out for him. Can you guess what it is?
I guess it is to the movie's credit that it doesn't dwell on this silly, prefabricated character arc any more than it needs to, but not so much to its credit that two great actresses like De Mornay and Leigh are given basically nothing to do but be there for the men. Did the producers cave in to the homophobia of the audience and assume that, if not for the presence of token females, people might assume that their leads are gay?
The movie has not one, but two scenes where one person is dangling off the edge of a large drop and another is holding them by the hand, but the grip is slipping. It's nothing we haven't seen before, and the movie largely fails to raise any tension, but it does look pretty good.
Brothers, the children of a famous firefighter, feuding with each other over who the true heir to the man's name is. A corrupt bureaucrat running for mayor on a platform of cutting funding to the fire department. One of our characters a closet firebug. But who?
The older of the brothers is separated from his wife - Rebecca De Mornay - because she loves him too much to see him put himself in danger all the time. The younger of the brothers has a girl - Jennifer Jason Leigh - who doesn't seem to mind being put on hold and messed around while he works out his personal garbage: changing careers constantly because he isn't ready to face up to the true calling the movie has mapped out for him. Can you guess what it is?
I guess it is to the movie's credit that it doesn't dwell on this silly, prefabricated character arc any more than it needs to, but not so much to its credit that two great actresses like De Mornay and Leigh are given basically nothing to do but be there for the men. Did the producers cave in to the homophobia of the audience and assume that, if not for the presence of token females, people might assume that their leads are gay?
The movie has not one, but two scenes where one person is dangling off the edge of a large drop and another is holding them by the hand, but the grip is slipping. It's nothing we haven't seen before, and the movie largely fails to raise any tension, but it does look pretty good.