Sadly Over-hyped

Don't Believe the Hype

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

In Huntingburg, the armored truck with three million dollars driven by Tom (Christian Slater) and his Uncle Charlie (Edward Asner) gets stuck in the flooding and realizes that the town has been evacuated since the dam does not have capacity to hold the storm. While waiting for the National Guard, they are attacked by Jim (Morgan Freeman) and his gang formed by Kenny (Michael Goorjian), Mr. Mehlor (Dann Florek) and Ray (Ricky Harris) and the clumsy Kenny kills Charlie. Tom flees with the bags of money and hides them in the cemetery. Then he is hunted down by Jim and his gang and he hides in a church. Out of the blue, he is knocked out and awakes locked in a cell. Soon he learns that the restorer Karen (Minnie Driver) believed he was a looter and hit him. Sheriff Mike Collins (Randy Quaid) and Deputy Wayne Bryce (Mark Rolston) go to investigate Tom' story while Officer Phil (Peter Murnik) takes Karen out of the town by boat. However she escapes with the boat and goes to the church. Meanwhile Tom is trapped in the cell full of water and Karen rescues him. He decides to return to the armored truck to retrieve a shotgun but he is captured by Jim and his men and learns that Charlie was part of the gang. He tries to retrieve the hidden money for the gang, but Sheriff Collins and his men have already taken it. Soon Tom learns that the Sheriff wants to keep the money for him and his men and Tom and Karen are witnesses and he teams up with Jim. "Hard Rain" is a combination of disaster genre with crime and action. Despite the negative reviews, the action scenes are spectacular, the cast is excellent and the plot has a great twist based on the ancient proverb "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". My vote is six.Title (Brazil): "Tempestade" ("Storm")

Hard Rain is a action film that stars Christian Slater, Morgan Freeman, Randy Quaid, Minnie DriverThe film features the characters in the middle of a flood along with dealing a heist.Hard Rain is one of the most under rated films that I have seen. For one the whole film take places in a flood and how the production team actually put the effort to create a setting that gives the film it's meaning.It's original plot make the movie clever enough to hold your attention. Plus there is a lot of tense moments throughout the film that you will be throw off by each oneAlso the action scenes in this film are really good and it goes to show that the film did try to be worth your while.Also the film features one of the best one liners I ever heard that I remember was feature in the Trailer. While the characters could have been better only Morgan and Christian characters really make the film work for it's plot there is a lot of twist in the film that you will be not expecting as well so you gotta keep your eyes open the whole time. Hard Rain is actually a good movie for it's original plot, the production and sets gives the film credit also the action in the film is really what drives the film. I give Hard Rain an 7 out of 10

The premise of Hard Rain is interesting enough. The cast was more than a cut above this level of thriller. The sets were impressive enough. But after the first 45 minutes or so, this film seems to run out of ideas and interesting set pieces. The film draws you in, but it can't quite hold your interest, and by the final twenty minutes, you are left with a bunch of useless posturing by unlikeable characters, and too much random gunfire that misses its targets.But how about the cast, though? Christian Slater and Minnie Driver were big names back then. Randy Quaid as a crooked Sheriff? Sure. Ed Asner as a grizzled old security guard? Okay, he still needs a paycheck every now and then. Betty White and Richard Dysart as a bickering old couple that refuses to evacuate as the flood waters rise... a nice touch to be sure. But they didn't seem to know what to do with Morgan Freeman. Theoretically, his character is the arch villain, and mastermind of this plot to rob an armored car during a massive flood. But he's just too likable as an actor to make him the bloodthirsty, cynical thief his character needed to be.The film starts well, and proves the technical skill of its makers from an early point. There are some great stunts and effects here. A chase through a flooded high school on jet skis is really cool, for example. But the film doesn't stay consistent as far as how high the water is between different scenes. How does water rise to the top of a building in one scene, and then in the very next scene, its only up to the top of car roofs in the street outside the building?? Oh, come on! Maybe some parts of this town are at different elevations, you might argue back at me. But we never get any establishing shots that indicate what the rules are. And things like that do matter. At least a little. The cast must have all caught pneumonia making this. They must have been absolutely miserable. The film was a bust at the box office, too. Even basic cable movie channels have avoided it over the years. There are some fun moments, though. Overall its worth about 6 stars.The Hound.

It's an armoured-car heist. And apparently, the villains not only knew when it was going to set off, how much was in it, and which way it was going; they also knew what the weather would be like en-route. Now that's forward planning! The old geezer driving it is apparently the villains' inside man. He drives the truck into a road flood, stalling the engine. Now all the gang have to do is turn-up in a boat and help themselves.Starring Pixie-faced Christian Slater as the honest sidekick; he puts up a fight which results in the old guy being gunned-down. After that, he hides the money and runs. The villains give chase. They need him alive in order to know where he's hidden it. Cue all manner of water sports.The rain is incessant (though not heavy enough to put out a simple church-roof fire). Flooding worsens. The dam breaks. Minnie (donkey jaws) Driver appears as a restorer of stained-glass windows, giving her usual acting-by-numbers turn. The sheriff goes crooked at the thought of $3 million, so enmity and loyalty become ambiguous though offer few additional thrills. Shooting gets almost incessant, mostly to little effect. In the end; it's boring.For me, the biggest problem is that non of the characters move me to care for them. The old guy, who might have excited sympathy, was one of the gang. Slater's and Driver's characters both incline towards the unbelievable. The rest are mostly just cameos of one particular human trait or another. The most heavyweight and potentially likable character is that of Morgan Freeman. But he is the lead baddie. And while he may not have wanted anyone hurt, it nevertheless happens and on his watch. If you don't care about the characters, then you don't care what happens to them, so there's no story to speak of.It's basically a thick slice of robbery ham, to which floods of water do not bring the additional drama its makers had hoped.One-watch hokum, can't recommend it.Incidentally; by 1998, armoured cars in Britain contained 'a locked safe to which the crew had no access', a homing device that was tamper-proof, explosive dye-bags that would render money un-useable, and 'smart-water' contaminants. Apparently the Yanks need to modernise. Mind how you go.