Backdraft

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What’s the Story?

Twenty years after he watched his father die fighting a fire, Brian McCaffrey (William Baldwin) returns to Chicago to finally face his demons. But despite his best bribery efforts, he ends up facing them at the very firehouse where his father worked -- and where his pain-in-the-butt older brother Stephen (Kurt Russell) now holds sway. Between the sibling rivalry, the drunken fights between Stephen and his ex-wife's new boyfriend, and erroneous news reports, Brian has to figure out whether he really has the nerve to storm into a fire and fight it (he mistakenly rescues a mannequin from a garment factory), whether he can face up to the horrible memory of his father's death, and whether he can help solve the mystery of who's systematically killing Chicago businessmen by setting up deadly "backdrafts" in their homes.

Is It Any Good?

Since September 11th, it's hard to imagine a movie that can stand up to the real-life heroism that New York firefighters displayed on that horrible day. Seen through that lens, 1991's summer blockbuster BACKDRAFT seems schmaltzy and overly precious. If you can block out memories of Sept. 11, you'll probably still find this film overly long and cheesy -- but you might enjoy it more. Ron Howard's sentimental direction is buoyed by the work of some great actors, notably Donald Sutherland as creepy firestarter Ronald and Robert DeNiro as investigator Donald "Shadow" Rimgale. Modern lovers of the gory CSI TV franchise will also appreciate the up-close-and-personal looks at bodies burned beyond recognition and the visits to the police lab and the scene of the crime.

But savvy movie buffs will also recognize set pieces that may work for the film but have cliché written all over them: Brian visits Ronald in the psychiatric hospital, echoing Silence of the Lambs, which was produced the same year. Viewers may also recognize the music-video montage scenes, a la Baywatch. Unfortunately for Backdraft, those other broadcasts do it better.