The Orlando Sentinel from Orlando, Florida • Page 94

3 3 7t -4 rf" 4 i i Lr ij THE I DEADLY yl If I I ART OF JjJ Kurt Russell and William Baldwin as competitive, firefighting brothers in this modern tear-jerker. 'Backdraft': Hot 'n' weepy JIIIIII Jll jfltlifiui if III IISB1 Sill By Jay Boyar musk I ai cruironu km fscuMirroiim midiipimiii SENTINEL MOVIE CRITIC fflTllll-JIIII Illllil LDI Prow Of iua (fi1 OonPiCpw MAgmtntMnM An SSf9 'p PICTURES Release one FASHION VILLAGE 8 896-7668 LtthMd LITCHFIELD CINEUA 10 3856 mwv 92 324-0115 NOW SHOWING! WOMETCO PARK 11 RTE HO WNTfRPAftK 644 6000 GwmmqI Ontno ALTAMONTES" inmc PLEASURE ISLAND 10 Off l-40l'T YUAGt EwT 827-1300 t.KhMd UCt CINEMA UNNtST BiVD 11 MWYA Tfl 277-1454 OSCEOLA SWEST CINEMA LOCATED SSW 933-2828 NO PASSES ACCEPTED FOB THIS ENGAGEMENT. conflict involves Brian (played by William Baldwin, who has great weepy eyes) and his authoritarian older brother, Stephen (played rather shrilly by Kurt Russell), who is also a firefighter. Brian knows he's in for a rough ride when Stephen arranges for him to be assigned to Engine 17, of which Stephen is the leader. You know you're in for a rough ride, too, as the competitiveness of their relationship is demonstrated again and again with little variation or development.

In addition to being lifted by its action scenes, Backdraft is helped by several peripheral incidents that seem to have been drawn from life or at least from firehouse legend. In one scene, Brian rescues a woman who turns out to be a manne- v- rjrr ilk Lfc. mwmmummmmmn mmimwmwn I 5 I REVIEW TTT7T3I JUM Mil i in i i -i mv-i quin. Later, he has a tryst with a real woman on top of a fire engine a tryst which continues as the truck starts to move. The script for Backdraft (which opens today) was written by former firefighter Gregory Widen, which may help to explain why those marginal incidents ring true.

The movie was directed by Ron Howard Parenthood, Splash, Cocoon), whose intuitive sense of the rhythms of popular entertainment keeps the picture from bogging down. Another of the movie's strengths is its supporting characters, who are generally more interesting than the brothers at the story's center. Robert De Niro, for example, gives a crisp, quirky performance as an expert on arson who attempts to determine the cause of several suspicious fires. (I was more interested in the huge collection of pens and pencils in his pocket protector than I was in the brothers' relationship.) And Donald Sutherland is riveting as a psychopathic arsonist called Ronald who provides Brian with insight into those suspicious fires in exchange for personal information. (Shades of Hannibal Lecter!) Scott Glenn (who, come to think of it, actually appeared in The Silence of the Lambs) shows up in the new film as an old friend of the McCaffrey brothers' dead father.

And Rebecca DeMornay is memorable in the interesting but underwritten role of Stephen's wife. Jennifer Jason Leigh, the other woman in this male weeper, also plays an intriguing character that is even more drastically underwritten: She's cast as Brian's girlfriend, a city hall honcho who must choose between loyalty to her boss and the dictates of her conscience. It's an indication of just how narrowly Backdraft is targeted that after Leigh's character makes her choice, we never see or hear from her again. Like the mannequin mentioned above, she fulfills the immediate needs of the plot and is promptly discarded. Old-fashioned movies like Dark Victory (1939) and Stella Dallas (1937) are known as tear-jerkers.

In their day, they were also called "women's pictures" because their weepy emotional content was considered to be especially attractive to the women of the period. Nowadays, however, there's a new, more "sensitive" breed of male in the world, and Hollywood has begun to turn out a new variety of tear-jerker just for him. Like the old women's pictures, these male-oriented weepers explore the emotional relationships among their characters, one or more of whom is likely to die before the closing credits. The difference is that the people in male weepers are most often men, and the person who dies is generally a father or a father figure. Dad (1989) was one of these formula movies, as were Memories of Me (1988) and Nothing in Common (1896).

As a male of at least minimal sensitivity (no quotation marks), I'm a little insulted that these films tend to patronize men in much the same way that the old tear-jerkers patronized pre-liberation females. Backdraft, the latest male weeper, doesn't break through the limitations of the form, but at least it's a marginal improvement on those other recent movies. The new film is set in the dramatic, and colorful world of the firefighter, which makes for scenes of daring rescues from visually exciting blazes. The story begins 20 years ago with a young boy named Brian McCaffrey looking on as his firefighting father is killed in a burning building. It then moves forward to the present as Brian tries to follow in his father's footsteps by becoming a firefighter himself.

One characteristic of a weeper (male or female) is that it presents its central relationship superficially, and Backdraft certainly fills the bill. The movie's main 3 Og 'Backdraft' Cast: Kurt Russell, William Baldwin, Scott Glenn, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Donald Sutherland, Rebecca De-Mornay, Robert De Niro Director: Ron Howard Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes Industry rating: (restricted) Parents' guide: Language, brief nudity, fire-related violence, gore Theaters: Fashion Square 6, Hoffner Centre, Interstate Mall 6, Lake Howell Square, Lake Mary Centre 8, Lake Square 6, Litchfield Cinemas, Movies at Marketplace, Orange Tree Cinema, Osceola West, Park 11, Pleasure Island 10, Republic Square, Sand Lake 7, UC Cinema, Weki-va Riverwalk Reviewing key. excellent, good, average, poor, awful 0 8 CO CD EXCLUSIVE! GENERAL CINEMA COLONIAL PROMENADE 4I77E. COLOMAl DHK 898-7707 Show Times: P.M..