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by Blender Dumbass

Aka: J.Y. Amihud. A Jewish by blood, multifaceted artist with experience in film-making, visual effects, programming, game development, music and more. A philosopher at heart. An activist for freedom and privacy. Anti-Paternalist. A user of Libre Software. Speaking at least 3 human languages. The writer and director of the 2023 film "Moria's Race" and the lead developer of it's game sequel "Dani's Race".

Ron Howard is a hell of a director. He knows how to get the image that he wants. And he knows how to do it so that it will hold up practically forever. His 1991 fire-fighters movie Backdraft is not an exception. The fire sequences are so real and so visceral in this film, despite being done 3 decades ago, that perhaps this film is even better when it comes to planning shots that hold up than his Apollo 13 movie ( where he used real weightlessness to shoot the space scenes ).

The film used so much of the real stuff ( as much as they could get away with ) that both Kurt Russell and William Baldwin got proper stuntmen credits in the film.

But if you are not into the film-making side of things, and just want to see a good movie, what should you expect from this film? Well it is a drama about fire-fighters. And a good one at that. If you are anywhere near a cry-baby like myself, you will cry. It is a very good drama. But it is also a surprisingly descent "who done it", which I didn't expect.

Robert De Niro plays a sort of fire-fighting adjacent investigator type character. He is like a mix between a fireman and a policeman. And his job is to figure out if the fire started by itself, or by somebody setting it off. But in a course of the film, he slowly uncovers a whole case of murders done in a very specific kind of way. Using a "Backdraft". A physical property of fire that makes it prone to explode, after being trapped in an enclosed space for a long time.

Howard's direction of the film, and his way to showcase the "Backdrafts" builds some incredible tension in certain scenes. Some of which flawlessly transition to drama. Also Howard is not afraid to show you some horrific body mutilation stuff. If people get hurt, they get hurt. He is not fetishizing the violence. He is not lingering on a shot of a nasty wound. He uses it more as a moment of slight shock. A second of a nasty wound in a sequence of other crazy bullshit, to make you feel how crazy that crazy bullshit really is. Good directing.

Happy Hacking!!!

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