I worked on "Backdraft" in the Location Department. It was great to see it got a excellent review from these guys. Back in the day, the studios used to sent out PR Kits for the film, sometimes before the film was completely posted. If you look up at the upper left hand corner of the frame at 3:30 in (Scott Glenn toasting) You can see the boom mic! Rarely seen that these days!
@@CraigMcfly1985 We had to take basic training for a week, and the final scene, the helicopter shot of the firetruck with "the probie" six of us crew were on board dressed up!
Truly Madly Deeply has one of the most extraordinary scenes I've ever seen: the lead's sadness in the beginning of the movie was the most affecting singular moment of grief I've ever witnessed in a movie.
Backdraft still remains one of my favorite firefighter movies of the 90's, and their review of it really soars. The movie itself was very well acted and very well directed by Ron Howard.
I saw Backdraft the weekend it came out in theaters. It was thirty years ago last week and I still consider it the worst weekend of my life! I was a junior in high school. I thought I finally had my shit together. Only I did something completely stupid and it has been in the back of my mind ever since. That being said, my friends and I thought a good Kurt Russell movie would take my mind off of things. Only Backdraft wasn't a good Kurt Russell movie. In fact, at the end of the film, I turned to my buddy Joe and said, "If Kurt Russell dies, I'm leaving." To this day, I have never seen the ending of Backdraft. FYI - the screenwriter who wrote this also wrote Highlander!!
The screenwriter's name is Gregory (Greg) Widen, who also wrote the dreadful 2nd chapter of Backdraft, but to tell you the truth Jason, nothing beats the original bro.
Backdraft has its problems but damn, I still love it after all these years. It's probably the biggest reason I ended up becoming a firefighter myself. It was in out family VHS library and I couldn't have been more than 6 or 7 when I first watched it. But I fell in love with the job and I just never grew out of it. Yeah sure, it's not what firefighting really looks like. But who cares?
I find it interesting that the biggest complaint from firefighters regarding Backdraft is that the firefighting in the movie is in reality too dangerous and less brave than depicted. As a filmgoer, I love it, though. It was clear Ron Howard really wanted the actors right in the thick of the fire and it paid off giving it a sense of reality that, as it turns out, is more fiction than reality.
My reviews Truly Madly Deeply (two thumbs down) Backdraft (two thumbs up, way up) Madonna Truth or Dare (two thumbs up) The Ballad of the Sad Cafe (two thumbs down) A Rage in Harlem (two thumbs up)
