Backdraft (HD DVD) (1991)

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General		Extras
Category	Action	Screen Saver Introduction-Ron Howard (2:52) Deleted Scenes-(43:07) Featurette-Making Of-Igniting the Story (14:59) Featurette-Bringing Together the Team (19:08) Featurette-Making Of-The Explosive Stunts (14:40) Featurette-Making Of-Creating the Villain: The Fire (12:50) Featurette-Real Life Firemen, Real Life Stories (8:57)
Rating
Year Of Production	1991
Running Time	137:02
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Ron Howard
Studio Distributor	Universal Pictures Home Video	Starring	Kurt Russell William Baldwin Scott Glenn Jennifer Jason Leigh Rebecca De Mornay Donald Sutherland Robert De Niro
Case	Amaray Variant
RPI	$36.95	Music	Hans Zimmer

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 French Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 Italian Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 German Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 Catalan Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 Japanese Dolby Digital Plus 5.1
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.40:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	1080p
Original Aspect Ratio	2.40:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired Portuguese Danish Finnish German Dutch Swedish Norwegian Italian French Catalan Japanese	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	Yes, fizzy drinks.
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Brian (William Baldwin) is a new recruit into the fire service, having recently graduated after floating around various jobs for years. You can't escape fate, it seems - not only is his elder brother an experienced fire fighter, his father was also highly decorated in the force, but was killed in a gas fire while on the job. Poor Brian was a boy at the time and witnessed the incident in all its gory detail, his dazed expression immortalised in a photograph that won the Pulitzer prize. Now employed in his family's destined occupation so to speak, the pressure is on. He's reluctantly assigned to his brother Stephen's unit (Kurt Russell) at a time when their local government is whittling back the service and bulldozing fire stations for parking space. After a couple of bad callouts and disagreements on the job, family tensions begin to surface that make Brain question his desire to be part of the force.

    Meanwhile, Don Rimgale (Robert DeNiro) is investigating a series of mysterious fires, possibly arson, that appear to be linked. Brian is offered the role to act as co-investigator, reporting directly to a shifty local politician, the very man responsible for cutbacks to the fire fighting staff. Keen to further his career and escape his domineering brother, Brian gives up his job on the front line to assist Rimgale in the dangerous investigation, but when his former team gets into serious trouble he will soon find his true destiny lies in holding a hose rather than a manila folder.

    With uber-Director Ron Howard at the helm, Backdraft is nothing short of epic. It's a proud, heroic, chest-inflating yarn that highlights teamwork and comradeship - all while inventively portraying 'fire' as an actual character and 'destiny' as an inescapable, romantic duty. It's not the kind of film that is for everyone, in fact I find it pretty corny, even a bit annoying at times in its portrayal of the job. These idiotic firemen hang out at the pub in their uniform and rush to nearby fires while half-p*****. The lead character, played by Kurt Russell, never wears correct safety gear. His character marches into blazing infernos with his jacket flying open and not even a mask on his face! Like Stallone in Judge Dread, maybe it was part of Kurt's contract to wear no head gear? It's just silly.

    Having said that, my real issues with Backdraft aren't its puke-inducing heroism or its blatant flaunting of the most basic safety protocols. The thing is, it's hard to watch this film without thinking of eel battles and phrases like "...if memory serves me correctly". Yes, much to my dismay, Iron Chef and Backdraft share the same theme music. It's seriously off-putting at first!

    If there's one thing Backdraft has going for it, it's the formidable cast that has been assembled. Baldwin, DeNiro and Russell are very engaging on screen, but they are clearly doing the best they can with the wafer-like script.

    Fans of the film will relish this superb HD DVD edition.

Video

    This video transfer is likely sourced from the master that was made for the Backdraft Special Edition of last year. The transfer has been encoded at 1080p resolution and compressed via the VC-1 codec. The transfer also maintains the film's original theatrical aspect ratio of 2.40:1, in a native 16x9 frame.

    The overall presentation is nice and sharp throughout, with plenty of fine detail to be found in everything from the bricks of buildings to hair and clothing. While it's certainly not in the league of HD transfers such as M:I:3, I would certainly say that the Backdraft transfer presented here belies its age. Shadow detail and black levels are quite striking in their depth.

    Colours are rich and lifelike. The bright oranges and yellows of the fire really leap off the screen and never appear oversaturated.

    There are no visible compression artefacts as far as I can see, but there are noticeable film artefacts throughout. A few blemishes, specs and hairs can be seen during the during first minutes, and a few inconsequential specs of dirt pop up intermittently during the remainder of the film. The film artefacting isn't particularly annoying, but it's there nonetheless.

    An English subtitle stream is included and may be selected via the setup menu. The text is relatively accurate, however it abbreviates the spoken word a little.

    The content has been authored on a dual layered HD DVD disc (HD-30).

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The film's original English soundtrack is presented here in Dolby Digital Plus 5.1, along with numerous other languages.

    The English dialogue is generally easy to discern throughout the film. I don't recall the dialogue ever being overpowered by effects. Donald Sutherland's character in particular is very softly spoken and can be a strain to make out. This is merely a personal gripe, but I also found the film's ADR a little unnatural at times, scenes in which the enthusiasm of the performance does not match the tone of the dialogue. Audio sync is fine.

    The surround channels are used primarily to carry the bombastic score. Creaks, knocks and bangs also ring from the rears in the appropriate moments, adding great atmosphere. The loud crackling of fire is one effect that makes particularly good use of an enveloping sound field. Voices are generally confined to the front centre channel throughout the film.

    In comparing the various audio tracks, I found the English the quietest of the lot, but only by a small margin. Some of the dubbed languages sound a little harsh, but the English is certainly very good, bright and full of depth.

    The score by Hans Zimmer will be very familiar to Iron Chef fans. It's a profound, emotional piece of work (if not a little pompous) that suits the heroic themes of the film pretty well. On the downside, the production of the score employed electronic elements such as programmed drums and percussion that date the soundtrack terribly. A few pieces of contemporary rock are thrown in for reference here and there, such as Cream's Sunshine of Your Love.

    The subwoofer actively enhances effects, especially the fire, with deep, tense rumbles, whooshes and explosions. The louder the better!

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    This is great package for fans of the film. All of the extra material from the Special Edition has been carried over and is presented in standard definition.

Menu

Screen Saver

    A standard feature on Universal HD titles, the screen saver appears when the film is paused for a few minutes or the menu is left to rotate a number of times.

Director Introduction-Ron Howard (2:52)

    Ron speaks of his personal feelings regarding the film, his fond memories of the production, and encourages viewers to explore the extras contained herein.

Deleted Scenes (43:07)

    Wow. This is a lot of extra footage, but it is easy to see why most of it was trimmed. Some scenes explore Brian's back story and his graduation from the academy, while others are simply pieces of familiar scenes that amount to unnecessary padding and character development.

Featurette- Igniting the Story (14:59)

    This piece follows most aspects of the production, from scripting to scoring, all via cast and crew interviews.

Featurette- Bringing Together the Team (19:08)

    A pretty interesting featurette that dissects the casting process, specifically how the fire fighting crew was assembled and how well they bonded on set between takes.

Featurette- The Explosive Stunts (14:40)

    The film's stunt coordinators, cast and crew discuss how they arrived at the fire effects we see on screen and how it affected the very brave stunt men.

Featurette- Creating the Villain: The Fire (12:50)

    The fire was initially intended to be at least partially CG, but it soon became apparent that the digital effects were not up to scratch. This featurette explores the various ways genuine fire effects were achieved on set during filming.

Featurette- Real Life Firemen, Real Life Stories (8:57)

    A group of firemen from California discuss their memories of the film when it was initially released and how it affected their status in the community. The men also explain a little of the hazards they have to face on a daily basis, as well as the reality of backdraft situations. As you would expect from firemen, the conversation inevitably turns to "cats in trees".

    The video transfer is great.

    The audio transfer is quite enveloping.

    The extras are extensive and relevant to the film.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall