Backdraft – 2 Disc Anniversary DVD Edition + HD-DVD
Picture:
B-/B (HD-DVD) Sound: B- Extras: B Film: B-
After
years of making light comic entertainment as a director, which kept his actor
persona more in tact that even he would have liked, Ron Howard took a
transitional step forward as a filmmaker with his fireman drama Backdraft in 1991. He still had to make a choice between an edgy
drama about how harrowing the job was and its dark underside or to do an
outright celebration of these everyday heroes.
He leaned towards the latter and though it is still an impressive
production, the film ages in strange ways.
The story
centers on two brothers (Stephen Baldwin, Kurt Russell) who have taken up the
occupation of their father, a fallen firefighter who one of the brothers
(Baldwin) saw die in front of his eyes on a supposedly routine call. Fast forward to “today” and the witness
brother is paired with an expert arson detector (Robert DeNiro) while juggling
a possibly compromising relationship with the female assistant (Jennifer Jason
Lee) of a shaky politician (the late, great J.T. Walsh) who is trying to cut
their funding.
Needless
to say that post-9/11, cutting firefighter budgets is now a permanent bad move
for any politician, but ten years earlier, it was one of those outrageous
things people let slip by too much because they were too distracted, uninformed
or did not even care. What would have
been written off as “liberal propaganda” seems “instantly” topical and
correct. Writer Gregory Widen (the Highlander franchise) brings respect,
dignity and humanity to the story of these men in a way Hollywood had never
done well to that point. However, the
feel-good Spielbergisms had been overdone and that is only more apparent both
post-9/11 and since Howard has become an even more important filmmaker.
The real
story here, which could have been done in a more ambitious film that was longer
in flashback or as a spin-off project, is the conflict between DeNiro and the
psychotic arsonist Ronald played to creepy perfection by Donald
Sutherland. This was just before The Silence Of The Lambs and to think
Howard and Brian Grazer missed what turned out to be a commercial and critical
goldmine. However, the film is one of
the better semi-formulaic projects of its types for which the lame Ladder 49 could never hope to
compete. Scott Glenn, Rebecca DeMornay,
Jason Gedrick and singer/musician David Crosby make up the rest of the
surprisingly solid supporting cast.
The
anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image on the DVD is not bad, but cannot match
the same 1080p digital High Definition image on the HD-DVD, both from the same
transfer. An early Super 35mm film
production, cinematographer Mikael Salomon, A.S.C., creates a more
atmospheric-looking film than anything Howard had come close to making and this
was shot to be on a big screen. This
included 70mm blow-up prints to show the fire in action. It is shot as a character and that works.
Though
this is on the clean side and some work was done to make this a good transfer,
there is fine detail missing in both versions, especially the regular DVD. It still looks good, but neither is as
memorable as the original 35mm film print this critic saw back then. Colors are muted, but maybe more so here than
on film and there is a naturalism lost in the transition or whatever
reason. The fire never looks phony since
digital visuals were still (and still are in some ways, if you think about it)
in its infancy. So those hoping for
another outright HD winner like Cinderella
Man can think again.
The Dolby
Digital 5.1 regular mix on the DVD just bested by the Dolby Digital Plus 5.1
mix on the HD-DVD, but both have some distortion, show the age of the original
recording and even has parts of Hans Zimmer’s score sounding warped! That is a shame, because the tracks must be
in better shape from the soundtrack master somewhere. The best original sound was the 4.1, 6-track
Dolby Magnetic 70mm Stereo Surround sound, some of the largeness and punch of
which can be heard here. However, you
can tell by anomalies in the soundfield that it has been stretched a bit here
and there to make it a 5.1 mix.
Performance is better than the very old first DVD release, with HD-DVD
the winner, but that sound is going to need remastered someday.
Extras
include a new intro by Howard, four original featurettes (with an occasional
upgrade) in 1.33 X 1 from the time (covering script evolution, casting, stunts
and the element of fire respectively), a relatively new look at the fire
station crew the film portrays and 40 minutes of deleted scenes that show the
even better film that was cut. Included
are more great DeNiro moments, as well as with J.T. Walsh. Too bad some of them did not stay in the
film, but you can see them now and judge for yourself.
- Nicholas Sheffo
