Backdraft may not be a very good movie, but it sure is great entertainment.
Comment
01/16/09
Backdraft (1991)
70
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:37
Fresh:26
Rotten:11
Average Rating:6/10
Runtime: 2 hrs 18 mins
Genre: Action/Adventure
Synopsis: Two feuding brothers carry on a heroic family tradition in the Chicago Fire Department. Before the smoke clears, love affairs are rekindled and lives are shattered as the brothers fight to resolve... [More]
Starring: Kurt Russell, William Baldwin, Scott Glenn, Jennifer Jason Leigh
Director: Ron Howard
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Reviews for Backdraft
[The scenes involving fire] are so good they make me recommend the movie anyway, despite its brain-damaged screenplay.
01/01/00
Top CriticBackdraft has some of the raw filmmaking excitement that has been missing from Howard's recent work.
02/05/08
Top CriticBackdraft is sure to do for fire what The Poseidon Adventure did for water.
01/01/00
Top CriticAn extremely old-fashioned tale about heroic firefighters (rival siblings...) with some good special effects, this is a typical Ron Howard picture in its middlebrow sensibility and sentimentality.
02/24/07
The film exploits Chicago's terrain of ethnic neighborhoods, political turf, and glorious modern architecture, but it has trouble when it comes in close to the personal level.
02/05/08
The spectacular fire sequences, which must have been hellish to film, are powerfully enveloping on screen, thanks especially to the eerie effect of the title.
05/20/03
Top Criticsimultaneously overblown and threadbare
09/27/06
The three separate elements don't quite gel, but the overall experience is still a fine bit of moviemaking.
11/07/02
Visually speaking, the film does pretty well with fire-as-spectacle, less well with everything else (Howard tends to trot out fuzzy-toned Spielbergian backlighting on any pretext).
02/05/08
Top CriticVisually, pic often is exhilarating, but it's shapeless and dragged down by corny, melodramatic characters and situations.
02/05/08
Top CriticDirector Howard is so mesmerized by the flames, he squirts formulaic lighter fluid over everything.
01/01/00
Top CriticHoward delivers exactly the kind of thoroughly entertaining commercial enterprise you might expect, only this one comes chock-full of breathtaking pyrotechnics allowing the ridiculous posturing of the two leads to take a back seat.
05/24/03
The fire sequences are stunning, and the build-up to them, complete with blaring sirens and bellowed conversations, has an aggressive immediacy.
01/26/06
It's spectacular, yes, but that's not all. Not only do the firefighting scenes evoke a feeling of gritty authenticity, but the fire itself really does seem to be alive.
02/05/08
Great effects, the fire is a living, breathing entity.
08/15/02
Exciting firefighter adventures with all-star cast.
01/02/05
Typical over-produced, lowest-common-denominator Ron Howard film
11/05/02
Nice action movie. Great effects.
08/18/02
Latest News for Backdraft
May 08, 2006:
Josh Lucas, Kurt Russell, and Cast Discuss "Poseidon" Adventure
Josh Lucas knows that actors have it easier than other people. But the making of "Poseidon" was an incredibly difficult undertaking, he said. "I never compare... More...
June 06, 2005:
Dreyfuss, Russell & Rossum Climb Aboard the "Poseidon"
Richard Dreyfuss ("Jaws"), Kurt Russell ("Backdraft"), and Emmy Rossum ("The Phantom of the Opera") are the first high-profile cast members to... More...
May 25, 2005:
Trailer Bulletin: "Sky High"
Yahoo! Movies brings us our very first look at "Sky High," which is Disney's cross between family comedy and superhero adventure flick. Kurt Russell... More...
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