Director Ron Howard
Starring Kurt Russell, William Baldwin, Robert De Niro
Rated M
Score 5/6

Two Chicago firefighter brothers, who don’t get along, have to work together while a dangerous arsonist is on the loose.

For those of you who have been reading my reviews for a while, I want to take an opportunity to clear something usually when I say ‘this needs to be seen on the biggest screen possible’ it usually means that I streamed the movie on google play on laptop. I really shouldn’t have watched this on my laptop because there are some brilliant shots of the blazes which really highlight the point that the movie about its fires being a living thing.
I enjoyed both Kurt Russell’s and William Baldwin’s performance they had great onscreen chemistry as the McCaffrey brothers. As you would expect Donald Sutherland gave a great performance, going into these reviews I think that it might have been a idea to watch the sequel before watching the original (I suppose it usually is a bad idea) because a large part of me was expecting Sutherland’s character Ronald Bartel to have more to do in the original then he did in the 2019 sequel. However, there is a brilliant moment between Bartel and Rimgale portrayed by Robert De Niro at Bartel’s Parole hearing.
I loved the music in this movie, it had such a familiar quality to it. Later when I read that Hans Zimmer was responsible for the music, I had what could only be described as an ‘oh yeah that’s why’ moment. In the final act the music developed into something amazing and I was glad that I had decided not to rely on my laptop’s speakers for this.

Director Gonzalo López-Gallego
Starring Joe Anderson, William Baldwin, Donald Sutherland
Rated M
Score 3/6

The sequel to the 1991 hit, follows an investigator with the Chicago F.D., who has to track down an arms dealer who use deadly fires as a distraction.

I was a little surprised when I found out that they made this one. Was it the best idea to make a sequel for Backdraft? Maybe not. While the original movie is something, I would probably go back to at some point I cannot honestly that about this one. The director just seemed to capture the level of epicenes that original had. I suppose this could have something to do with the fact that this was a direct-to-digital release. Although Gonzalo López-Gallego is not a name that immediately springs to mind as a director, I have seen a couple of his movies and compared to the movies of his that I have watched Backdraft 2 even though it is watchable it is still something of a disappointment.
It was good to see that William Baldwin and Donald Sutherland reprised their roles from the 1991 original. I have to admit that I kind of preferred Sutherland’s performance as Ronald Bartel in this movie as opposed to in the original movie, this time round his character had more screen time and it also looked like he was having fun with the character.
I enjoyed Joe Anderson’s performance as Sean McCaffrey, the son of Kurt Russell’s character Stephen McCaffrey.