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| Tookey's Review |
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| Pro Reviews |
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| Mixed Reviews |
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| Anti Reviews |
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| Cast |
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| Released: |
1998 |
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| Genre: |
ACTION
DISASTER
ADVENTURE
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| Origin: |
US |
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| Length: |
96 |
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A bank-robber (Morgan Freeman) tries to rob an armoured-car driver (Christian Slater) of 3 million dollars, but there's a flood...
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Reviewed by Chris Tookey
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| A talented cast is wasted on a very lacklustre plot. The film sank without trace at the box office. |
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| MIXED |
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| "May not be the most inventive of thriller plots, essentially boiling down to an extended chase with all concerned after the moneybags, but it's extremely impressibve as a physical producrion." |
| (Trevor Johnston, Time Out) |
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| ANTI |
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| “From beginning to end, I was acutely aware of actors being paid to stand in cold water. Suspension of my disbelief in this case would have required psychotropic medications... Minnie Driver plays a local woman who teams up with Slater, so that they can fall in love while saving each other from drowning. First Slater is in a jail cell that's about to flood, and then Driver is handcuffed to a staircase that's about to flood, and both times I was thinking what rotten luck it was that Hard Rain came so soon after the scene in Titanic where Kate Winslet saved Leonardo DiCaprio from drowning after he was handcuffed on the sinking ship. It's bad news when a big action scene plays like a demonstration of recent generic techniques. Meanwhile, Freeman's character is too darned nice. He keeps trying to avoid violence while still trying to steal the money. This plot requires a mad dog like Dennis Hopper. Freeman's character specializes in popping up suddenly from the edge of the screen and scaring the other characters, even though it is probably pretty hard to sneak up on somebody in a powerboat. Freeman is good at looking wise and insightful, but the wiser and more insightful he looks, the more I wanted him to check into a motel and order himself some hot chocolate.” |
| (Roger Ebert) |
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| “It's not just about a disaster, it is a disaster... one extended, dull chase sequence punctuated by occasional shoot-outs. There's a lot of water, broken glass, gunfire, and explosions. It's all very routine and uninteresting because there aren't any real characters and the plot only occasionally makes sense. The film's conclusion is so preposterous that it's almost worth watching for the sheer masochistic enjoyment of seeing the monumentally idiotic way that the film makers decide to resolve the myriad subplots that are floating around.” |
| (James Berardinelli, Reelviews) |
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| “The dialogue is more or less on a par with most action flicks - ‘C'mon, get out of here’, ‘Let's go’, ‘What the hell's going on?’ etc - and one wonders, as one often does with today's underwritten films, whether the old silent movies couldn't have told this story just as well. The most ordinary characters seem capable of swimming amazing distances underwater, as they do in Titanic. As for the acting, it's difficult to judge performances when every actor's face is streaming with water or covered with matted hair for the whole of the film, but Freeman is his usual engaging self, whatever he may be up to.” |
| (Evan Williams, Australian) |
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| "A washout... Freeman's drenched persistence in purtsuit of the cash is utterly incredible... Given that Hard Rain joins Chain Reaction and Kiss the Girls among Freeman's recent films, we can assume that he must have found little difficulty in playing someone who will wade through anything for money." |
| (Edward Porter, Sunday Times) |
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