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Backdraft
Directed by	Ron Howard
Written by	Gregory Widen
Starring	Kurt Russell William Baldwin Scott Glenn Jennifer Jason Leigh Rebecca De Mornay Donald Sutherland Robert De Niro
Music by	Hans Zimmer
Cinematography	Mikael Salomon
Distributed by	Universal Studios
Release date(s)	May 24, 1991
Running time	132 min (137 min. in Ontario, Canada)
Language	English

Backdraft is an American movie released in 1991, directed by Ron Howard and written by Gregory Widen. Kurt Russell, William Baldwin, Robert De Niro and Scott Glenn star. Donald Sutherland, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Rebecca De Mornay, Jason Gedrick and J.T. Walsh are also featured. The story is about firefighters in Chicago on the trail of a serial arsonist.

The film received three Academy Award nominations (Sound Effects Editing, Visual Effects and Best Sound). It also received two nominations at the first annual MTV Movie Awards.

There is an exhibit at Universal Studios based on the film.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Trivia 3 Crew 4 Critical reaction 5 Influences 6 See also 7 External links

The movie tells the story of a group of Chicago firefighters, two of whom are brothers. Stephen McCaffrey (Kurt Russell), the elder of the two brothers, is slowly being taken over by the fires that he fights. Beating the fire becomes an obsession with him. He is always at the heart of the fire - the most dangerous place to be.

Brian (William Baldwin) is a bit of a drifter who has become a firefighter after quitting the fire academy several years before, then embarking on a number of other failed careers before returning. He is looked down on by his elder brother who expects him to fail in his newly chosen career. As a child, Brian witnessed the death of their father (who was also a firefighter) first hand when an explosion killed him.

Donald Rimgale (Robert De Niro) is a fire investigator. (The real Donald Rimgale, a veteran Chicago fire investigator, served as one of the technical advisors on the film.) He is called in because a number of fires that have occurred have somewhat similar connections. Rimgale is dedicated to his job as an arson investigator. Convicted arsonist Ronald Bartel (Donald Sutherland) has been imprisoned for a number of years and can appear very normal on occasions but at the mention of fire his mind becomes obsessed with the idea of living fire, one that takes over not only buildings but also people's lives. His latest application for parole is turned down during the story. A fictional chemical substance, trychtichlorate, is used by the arsonist to set the fires.

The longest serving of all the firefighters, John "Axe" Adcox (Scott Glenn), served under the McCaffrey's father in the Chicago Fire Department and was like an uncle to the two boys when their father died. He takes great pride in his work and has a love of the department. Obviously brave, he is the firefighter who "takes the pipe" and attacks the fire head on, but is also concerned about Stephen's blatant unorthodox methods, and disregard of safety procedures.

Martin Swayzak (J.T. Walsh) is an alderman on the City Council. He has obvious hopes of being elected to mayor, but has had to make a number of budget cuts to the fire department. Many of the rank and file firemen believe that the cuts that he has made are endangering the lives of the firefighters. Some of the firefighters are not slow in letting him know what they think of him and his cuts. It is revealed during an investigation that he was paid off by several businessmen and contractors to shut down the firehouses for purposes of rebuilding and/or rehabbing the firehouses into community centers, with the aforementioned businessmen receiving the contracts for the construction.

There are also two main female characters: Helen McCaffrey (Rebecca De Mornay) and Jennifer Vaitkus (Jennifer Jason Leigh). Helen is Stephen's estranged wife, Jennifer is Brian's ex-girlfriend and works in the office of Martin Swayzak. Her loyalties are torn between her job with the alderman (who is making financial cuts in the fire department) and Brian who is obviously concerned about the damage that the cuts are doing to the firefighters, eventually choosing Brian's side.

Near the end of the film, it is revealed that Adcox is behind the backdraft fires; he set the fires to kill associates of Swayzak because he is angered that Swayzak was making money off the deaths of firefighters.

In the climactic scene, Stephen is fatally injured trying to save a falling Adcox after confronting him about the deadly backdrafts during a multiple alarm fire at a chemical plant. Stephen dies in the ambulance on the way to the hospital with Brian at his side, his final request being that Brian not reveal that Adcox was behind the series of arson fires. After the funeral of Stephen and Adcox, Donald and Brian, with the help of the police, interrupt a press conference Swayzak has hosted saying that detective would like to ask him questions about a fake manpower study which led to the deaths of several firemen, including Stephen and Adcox, effectively killing off his campaign as mayor. It is implied in the final scene that Brian continues on with his firefighting career despite the losses of both his father and brother.

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

• Prior to writing the script for Backdraft, Gregory Widen worked as a firefighter for three years. He got this basis for the film after witnessing a friend of his being killed in an explosive backdraft.

• Kurt Russell responds to an arson fire and uses the line, "You're so sly, but so am I." Dan Butler uses the same line in The Silence of the Lambs when investigating a Death's Head moth. Both films feature characters investigating crimes by interrogating captive criminals (in Backdraft, arsonist Donald Sutherland; in The Silence of the Lambs, cannibal Anthony Hopkins). The line first appeared in Thomas Harris' book Red Dragon which was first published in 1981, years before either Backdraft was released or The Silence of the Lambs was written.

• Ron Howard's first choice for Brian McCaffrey was Brad Pitt. William Baldwin was his second choice but preferred by the studio because he was more experienced and they felt that he was a bigger name that would attract more of an audience. When Baldwin was offered the lead in Backdraft he had to back out of a smaller part in another film. The film was Ridley Scott's Thelma & Louise and the part of JD went to Brad Pitt. This story is from the DVD commentary for Thelma & Louise.

• Many of the extras in the film are actual Chicago firefighters. A casting call was put out in a Department memo prior to the start of shooting. In addition, many suburban firemen participated in the funeral procession.

• The two arson victim names are Cosgrove and Seagrave. Cosgrove's namesake is real-life Chicago fireman and author William Cosgrove, who served as Robert De Niro's technical advisor for the movie. Seagrave is the name of a fire apparatus (fire and ladder truck) manufacturer. The firehouse where Engine 17 and Truck 46 were quartered is the real, in-service firehouse of the Chicago Fire dept's Engine 65 and Truck 52.

• The numbers of the fire companies are all "dead" numbers in the Chicago Fire Dept. Engine 17, Truck 46, Engine 24, Truck 6 (now back in service as of March of 2004), & Engine 33, (referred to, not actually seen in the movie), are all out of service. The Chicago Fire Dept. has 24 battalions, battalion 25 was created for the movie.

• The production company totally refurbished 6 pieces of fire apparatus, and upon completion of filming, donated 5 of them to the Chicago Fire Dept., who used 4 of them as front line equipment for several years, and one as a spare. The only one that was not donated to the city was the truck that was flipped over, which was totaled for that shot.

• Kurt Russell, Scott Glenn, and William Baldwin did a lot of their own stunts, and stunt coordinator Walter Scott was so impressed by their performances that they are listed as stunt performers in the credits.

• Ron Howard once again cast his brother Clint Howard in this movie. Following the tradition of playing obnoxious, unlikable characters in his brother's films, Clint plays Ricco, a pathologist who sneers at Brian McCaffrey's squeamishness at handling a badly burned corpse: "Jesus Christ, he's not going to sell you insurance...pick him up!"

• At the party on the boat, Jennifer Jason Leigh mentions that she has to talk to one of the guests, Larry DeWaay, a producer of the movie.

• The photos of firefighters seen on the walls of the investigator's office are of the Los Angeles County fire fighters, who were on scene during the filming of the fire scenes as a precautionary measure.

• After reading the film's script, Jennifer Jason Leigh reportedly told director Ron Howard that she wished she was the fire because it has the best part.

• To draw audiences into the intensity of real fire, a cameraman was outfitted in fire-proof suit and wandered through the flames with a hand-held camera.

• Directed by: Ron Howard
• Written by: Gregory Widen
• Produced by: Richard Barton Lewis, Pen Densham, John Watson
• Executive Producers: Brian Grazer, Raffaella DeLaurentiis
• Cinematography: Mikael Salomon
• Production Designer: Albert Brenner
• Editors: Daniel Hanley & Michael Hill
• Music: Hans Zimmer and Bruce Hornsby
• Costume Design: Jodie Lynn Tillen
• Casting: Jane Jenkins & Janet Hirshenson
• Stunt Coordinator: Walter Scott
• Assistant Directors: Aldric La'Auli Porter, Ian Foster Woolf and Jeff Okabayashi
• Movie Watching expert: Alex Cosentino

This article does not cite any references or sources. (June 2007) Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

Backdraft has been criticized for its lack of realism regarding firefighting techniques. Among other things, self-contained breathing apparatuses are rarely used in this film, the huge lack of smoke (which is present in any fire), a large amount of furniture is destroyed by the firefighters for no apparent reason, inexperienced firefighters are sent into burning halls all alone, but this is because chicago has a fire academy so they come in to the job with experience, and the film repeatedly attributes mystic, animalistic consciousness to fire itself (though the latter could be considered as less than a statement of fact than a cinematic technique by which "expert" firefighters are distinguished from less successful firefighters by their "understanding" of the "bestial" characteristics of fire; in the world of the film, those who view fire as an animal have an edge against it).

The Japanese cooking TV show, Iron Chef, used Backdraft's music (composed by Hans Zimmer). The film is the basis of an attraction at Universal Studios Theme Parks where visitors can learn how the pyrotechnic effects were created and experience some of them first hand.

• List of firefighting films

• Backdraft at the Internet Movie Database
• Backdraft film script at MovieScriptPlace.com

v • d • e Films directed by Ron Howard

Grand Theft Auto (1977) · Night Shift (1982) · Splash (1984) · Cocoon (1985) · Gung Ho (1986) · Willow (1988) · Parenthood (1989) · Backdraft (1991) · Far and Away (1992) · The Paper (1994) · Apollo 13 (1995) · Ransom (1996) · EDtv (1999) · How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (2000) · A Beautiful Mind (2001) · The Missing (2003) · Cinderella Man (2005) · The Da Vinci Code (2006) · Angels & Demons (2008)