Name: Retro Film Review: Hard Rain (1998)
Item: Hard Rain
Rating: 50
Author: @drax

(source:tmdb.org)

People go to cinema theatres in order to be entertained and to be as far from the real world as possible. When Hollywood films deal with disasters, the disasters in question usually aren't those audiences can expect to encounter in real life. Volcano eruptions, early 20th Century ocean liners hitting icebergs, giant meteors colliding with Earth or aliens trying to conquer the world - all that is acceptable. Something as prosaic and frequent as flood wrecking the small American town is not. This can explain why Hard Rain, 1998 action thriller directed by Mikael Salomon, got ignored by public and savaged by American critics.

The plot of Hard Rain is set in Huntingburg, small Indiana town faced with heavy rain, rising waters and prospect of massive floods. The town is evacuated and only a small police force led by Sheriff (played by Randy Quaid) remains in order to prevent looting. Money from the local bank is also being evacuated and this task is entrusted to Tom (played by Christian Slater) and Uncle Charlie (played by Ed Asner), two armoured truck drivers. Their attempt to bring 3 million US$ to safety is foiled when they get ambushed by the gang of criminals led by Jim (played by Morgan Freeman). Charlie gets killed but Tom manages to escape and hide the money. Because of that he is pursued by criminals and seeks shelter from Sheriff who is quite sceptical towards his story.

Critics' reaction to Hard Rain could partly be explained with this film's similarity with Titanic - in both films rising waters are creating suspense and in both films action story is burdened with lame romantic subplot. But the sins of Titanic were forgiven, while Hard Rain came under much harder and undeserved scrutiny. Script by Graham Yost is actually a very good combination of disaster film and crime thriller. The characters are more complex than usual and director Mikael Salomon handles some of the action scenes very well, especially those depicting boat chases in the city streets. The major problem of Hard Rain is in villains being more interesting and better played than film's bland hero. Morgan Freeman, one of Hollywood's most dependable actors, is very effective in the role of greedy villain. Relatively unknown Michael A. Goorjian is also very good as villain's retarded henchman while Randy Quaid gives very interesting portrayal of policeman with questionable loyalties. Slater and his partner Minnie Driver aren't that good. However, despite those flaws, Hard Rain provides enough action and humour to be more than passable piece of Hollywood entertainment.

RATING: 5/10 (++)

(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.films.reviews on June 9th 2004)