Hard Rain
| Year: | 1998 |
| Director: | Michael Salomon |
| Cast: | Christian Slater, Minnie Driver, Morgan Freeman, Randy Quaid |
More or less written off after release, and the victim of some pretty bad reviews, I actually loved it.
What a cool idea, setting a heist movie in a town so badly deluged with rain that it's mostly underwater. It would have cost a fortune and been a huge pain to design, light and stage, but it also would have been so much fun to shoot and perform in.
Slater is a generic hero, Driver a generic leading lady, and they get caught up with gangster Freeman and local cop Quaid, an armoured truck full of loot, a bad rainstorm that was supposed to be the cover for the heist, and a dam threatening to burst and bury the town.
Slater is the security guard whose truck is hit when it gets stuck in the flood by Freeman and his inept team. Trying to stay one step ahead of the crooks in a flooded city and having stashed $3m isn't easy, but he gets the help of the girl restoring the local church (Driver) and the constabulary left behind the complete the evacuation of the town.
But just as everything seems sorted, things shift uncomfortably, and the hero faces a whole new enemy, having to join forces with his former nemesis in the whole deal. There's heaps of gunplay, cool set pieces and great ideas that lift a by-numbers action thriller way above its station.
What a cool idea, setting a heist movie in a town so badly deluged with rain that it's mostly underwater. It would have cost a fortune and been a huge pain to design, light and stage, but it also would have been so much fun to shoot and perform in.
Slater is a generic hero, Driver a generic leading lady, and they get caught up with gangster Freeman and local cop Quaid, an armoured truck full of loot, a bad rainstorm that was supposed to be the cover for the heist, and a dam threatening to burst and bury the town.
Slater is the security guard whose truck is hit when it gets stuck in the flood by Freeman and his inept team. Trying to stay one step ahead of the crooks in a flooded city and having stashed $3m isn't easy, but he gets the help of the girl restoring the local church (Driver) and the constabulary left behind the complete the evacuation of the town.
But just as everything seems sorted, things shift uncomfortably, and the hero faces a whole new enemy, having to join forces with his former nemesis in the whole deal. There's heaps of gunplay, cool set pieces and great ideas that lift a by-numbers action thriller way above its station.