Ladder 49

Review by Richard Lee

Buena Vista Home Entertainment / 2004 / 115 Minutes / PG-13
Street Date: March 8, 2005

Specifications:
-DVD-Video
-DVD-9
-Region 1

Aspect Ratio:
-1.85:1 Anamorphic Widescreen

Audio:
-English 5.1 enhanced home theater mix
-French dolby digital 5.1 surround sound

Subtitle Options:
-English for the hearing impaired
-French
-Spanish
-None

Main Menu:
-Play
-Scene selection
-Bonus features
-Set up
-Sneak peeks

Bonus Features:
-The making of "Ladder 49" (21:09)
-Everyday heroes (13:38)
-Deleted scenes (13:59)
-Audio commentary
-"Shine your light" music video (4:24)

Being a firefighter not only means "running into burning buildings while others are running out", it also means one gets to join an exclusive fraternity of brothers who are all committed to the same selfless acts of bravery in an effort to help their fellow man. That is the message this movie and other fire-fighting movies like it conveys; "Towering Inferno" and especially "Backdraft" come into mind. But where those movies dealt with the fire department or a family of fire-fighters as a whole, "Ladder 49" centers on one individual, Jack Morrison, played by Joaquin Phoenix, whose scarred upper lip makes me wonder if he and actor Stacey Keach stopped the exact same fist with their faces. 

The movie begins with a night-time fire in a huge warehouse. Jack has just saved a civilian by lowering him from a burning section of the structure. But just as he does so, the floor underneath him gives way and he falls several stories down and winds up trapped on the ground level amid the flame-engulfed building. It is here while Jack goes in and out of consciousness that he begins to experience flashbacks and we see how his life as a fire-fighter and family man develops; they could have called this movie "Backflash". We see his humble beginnings as a rookie who meets his fire chief, played unconvincingly by John Travolta. We do not believe for a second that Travolta's character is a seasoned veteran of fire-fighting. This role would have been better played by someone who looks like he went through hell and back, like Nick Nolte. We do however get to see Johnny Boy parade around in frilly boxer shorts, to little comedic effect. Jack gets hazed like a freshman in a fraternity and soon after does the same to someone newer than him. Later, we see Jack meet the girl who would become his wife, played by Jacinda Barrett, another all-American looking Australian actress, who puts in the movie's best performance. But with the good times must also come the bad as we see Jack lose his comrades to tragedy. 

This is the first big-budget Hollywood production regarding fire-fighters post 911 and while it does an admirable job trying to go beyond the fires and into the lives of the men who fight them; there is nothing really new here that we haven't seen before. What it really does is make me wish Hollywood would make a new anamorphic DTS dvd of "Backdraft"; now that is sorely needed.

Picture Quality:

Detail level is consistent throughout and although dark and evening shots are supposedly the most difficult to transfer onto a dvd, very little if any digital artifacts were present. The fires were bright and vivid, blazing right off the monitor while the overall color palette was deep and realistic, particularly the greens during the St. Patrick's Day segment. Generally, this is a good clean transfer. My only complaint here is that this subject matter might have been better presented in a wider aspect ratio; say 2.35:1 to maximize the scope and impact of the fire scenes. Being presented in 1:85.1 instead, the film comes off more like a made-for-TV movie rather than a full-blown theatrical feature. 

Audio Quality:

"Ladder 49" comes with what is labeled an "English 5.1 enhanced home-theater mix". This has also been presented on other selected Disney DVD releases. For this mix, the sounds are completely enveloping where they need to be; the explosions and flames bang and churn all around you. Discrete surrounds are only evident during the fire scenes and are used effectively to direct attention to explosions and creaking/crackling structures behind the viewer. In the scenes between the fires, the surrounds all but drop out save for the clichéd Irish music and obligatory rock ballads. Dialogue is always clear and the LFE channel comes alive as expected during the fire scenes. Scenes of heightened audio enhancement: (5:00) - The Initial Rescue; (20:00) - Jack Loses His Cherry; (87:55) - A Fire in the Snow.

Bonus Features:

Audio Commentary with director Jay Russell and editor Bud Smith; here we learn why Baltimore was chosen and the arrangements made with the city. They mention consulting with director Ron Howard and how he made the fires in "Backdraft". They toyed with the idea of doing the fires with CGI; but ultimately chose to make real fires because they deemed the CGI fires were not real-looking enough.

There are two featurettes: "The Making of Ladder 49" and "Everyday Heroes: Real Stories From Real Firefighters". The first featurette runs 21 minutes and can be watched in three separate segments or all together. The segments are: "On Location", "Fire Academy: Training the Actors", and "Anatomy of a Scene: The Warehouse Fire". They all have behind the scenes footage and interviews with the director, writer, producer, and cast members. Worthy of note is how Travolta got burned during the shooting and how Phoenix insisted on doing most of his own stunts, including rappelling down the side of a building. "Everyday Heroes" is a 14 minute featurette that reiterates the heroism of firefighters in the light of 911.

There are five deleted scenes totaling about 15 minutes of extra footage that would have been nice in the theatrical version because they add to the development of the characters. These were ultimately cut probably because the producers needed to bring in the movie under two hours. There's "Lunch Room Conversations", "Jack and Linda's First Date", "Captain Tony Arrives"(explaining why a new face pops up halfway through the movie), "Ray's Subplot", and "911" which includes the film's most poignant line had it been included in the final cut, "the only thanks you get in this job is a good funeral".

Lastly, there's a music video for the Robbie Robertson track "Shine Your Light", along with a bunch of trailers that play on disc start-up or on selection of the "Sneak Peeks" option. These include "National Treasure", "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and the "Home Improvement" TV series.