Hard Rain Movie
Storyline
TAGLINES
In the worst storm in living memory, one guard stands between five men and three million dollars.
Hol tief Luft. Du wirst sie brauchen. (Take a deep breath. You'll need it.)
Prepare for hard rain.
A simple plan. An instant fortune. Just add water.
Heavy Rainfall causes a Indiana river to swell and flood the town. All inhabitants are forced by public services to leave instantly. Tom and his uncle Charlie work for a money transport firm and their assignment is to evacuate all cash from the banks along the flooding river. So, their truck is loaded with about three million Dollars. Hank tries to prevent further flooding, as he's the guy responsible for the dam up the river, but he has to open one gate in order to save the old dam from breaking. Only the police under the Sheriff's leadership stay in town to prevent looting. As the water level rises, Tom and Charlie's Truck gets stuck in the flooded road. This is the moment, Jim, an elderly thief, and his gang have been waiting for. In an attempt to get the money from the truck, Charlie gets shot and Tom swims off to save the cash bags. While trying to hide, he meets Karen, who resisted to leave the old church she has been restoring for eight months. She thinks he is a looter, and calls the cops to bring him in. But as the Sheriff finds out about that much cash in a situation like this, he radios his old pal Hank, up at the dam...
| Morgan Freeman | Jim |
| Christian Slater | Tom |
| Randy Quaid | Sheriff |
| Edward Asner | Uncle Charlie |
| Michael A. Goorjian | Kenny |
| Dann Florek | Mr. Mehlor |
| Ricky Harris | Ray |
| Mark Rolston | Wayne Bryce |
| Peter Murnik | Phil |
| Wayne Duvall | Hank |
| Richard Dysart | Henry Sears |
| Ray Baker | Mayor |
| Jay Patterson | Mr. Wellman |
| Michael Monks | Father on Local News |
| Mackenzie Bryce | Baby on Local News |
5.50 out of 10 (10834 votes)
Visitor Reviews
Terribly underrated action flick
posted on 02 Apr 2009I guess some people just have a hard time accepting Christian Slater as an action hero. I don't understand why; he's certainly not Arnold or Bruce or Jackie, but he does a credible job. Anyway, a strong script/director combination makes up for a lot... I was impressed with how many ways they could create tension with nothing scarier than a bunch of water.
Mindless Fun
posted on 03 Mar 2009If you like action movies, and only action movies, you will like this movie. Not love it, but you will like it. None of the characters are believable and some, including Minnie Driver's character, are almost completely unnecessary. The plot, with just a few twists to keep the viewers interest, but only minimally, is pretty standard. What saves this movie, however, is its original action sequences and its setting. The movie takes place during a giant flood and we learn pretty quickly that water where it shouldn't be is very entertaining. Simple shootouts aren't just the same when they occur in 10 feet of water. Even a band of robbers chase the hero into a school with jet-skis, or crash through a church roof in a boat. These scenes of mindless action are the only thing that saves this movie from being totally preposterious crap. At the end you realize that the movie was pretty stupid, but you enjoyed yourself while it lasted.
Another Film With Lots of Water That Is All Wet
posted on 13 Feb 2009"Hard Rain" is a really ridiculous film that is not sure what it wants to be. The movie itself is about a heist to steal $3 million from an armored car on one of the wettest nights ever in a small Midwestern town. None of the characters are what they seem to be. The bad guys become good guys and vice versa. Then some characters change yet again. Christian Slater tries hard, but the material is just not there. Morgan Freeman, Minnie Driver, and Randy Quaid all have their moments, but are all lost with the somewhat confusing screenplay. The direction is all over the map and the special effects are not as impressive as the film-makers would have liked. 2 out of 5 stars.
I dig it!!
posted on 10 Feb 2009This is a great film that should have made a bigger splash at the box office. It really isn't just another run of the mil action flick. It's more of a natural disaster meets crime movie; which make for an awesomely unique story with one of a kind scenes to take place. Christian Slater dominates the screen as he does best; I only wish he was still leading man material instead of getting bit roles. I do admit there are times when you know what's going to happen before it does but you do still get some great surprises in there. I love the humor, there is a lot of it but they don't go over the top with it to where you can't take the movie serious. Big thumbs up for this underrated film. Love it!!
As entertaining as watching July 4th fireworks, or crashes in a motorcycle race!
posted on 18 Dec 2008"Hard Rain" will not go down as a memorable film. Look at the 2-minute theatrical trailer, watch it 50 times in a row, and that's about the movie!
A small town in Indiana is about to flood by dam overflow during perpetual rain. Also, an inept band of crooks, led by Morgan Freeman, are planning a $3million heist. Things go wrong, in the heist and in the flood, good guys turn crooks also, there's almost no one to root for. Lots of water, rising fast, lots of chase scenes in boats and jet skiis, lots of shooting. The DVD has a pretty good DD 5.1 surround track, using the rears pretty effectively. In some scenes you actually feel like you're in the rising water. However there are "zero" extras, not even a hint of how this film was made, which probably would have been better than the movie itself. I rate it "5" of 10, for sheer effort. Writing, directing, acting, and editing aren't particularly good, but the film really, really tries hard, and some of the underwater and rising water action and escape scenes are innovative.Main actors are Freeman, Christian Slater (also producer), Minnie Driver, Randy Quaid (as the sheriff who gets greedy), with small parts by Ed Asner as the armored truck driver and Betty White as the complaining old wife of a different man.
Casual autobiography, anyone?
posted on 12 Dec 2008Twenty-five years ago, I attended public school with screenwriter, and author of "Speed", Graham Yost, where one of our teachers was named Mr. Mellor -- a good teacher but no nonsense. I guess I can use my crystal ball now to predict the names of characters in upcoming Yost screenplays. The smart money is riding on our old gym teacher. Now we'll just have to wait and see.
Not bad if you know what to expect beforehand
posted on 09 Dec 2008What's with all the bad reviews? Sure, this film is completely unbelievable. The acting is good, but not great from all involved. You can't help wondering if Ed Asner, Betty White and Minnie Driver were cast just to keep them from reaching oblivion in Hollywood. Although, while doing an admirable job, Morgan Freeman appears to be rather bored playing the part of bad-guy "Jim". Christian Slater fares better as the guy who's caught in the middle of everything but he always looks on the verge of busting out in laughter due to the unbelievability of it all. Taking this into consideration, Hard Rain was obviously DESIGNED to be a mindless action flick, on par with original television series's such as Batman or The Six Million Dollar Man. When was the last time you saw Adam West or Lee Majors put on an Oscar winning performance? You didn't, but that never kept you from tuning in each week or running off to make a peanut butter sandwich when all the "ZAM!" "POWIE!" animations were flashed on the screen. Or when Steve Austin was ripping through solid steel with his bare hands. It's the same premise, total mindless fun, nothing more. But I can understand how some may feel ripped-off with the talents of Freeman and Slater being wasted on nearly one dimensional character roles.Honestly, I have a hard time giving this movie a rating of six because it's completely dependent upon what I'm in the mood for watching at any given time, and that could vary it up or down a point or two. If you're looking for non-stop action from start to finish, not to be taken seriously with the best elements of spaghetti westerns, disasters, bad guys, corruption and chase scenes -- get some beer, order a pizza and invite your buddies over. I guarantee you'll laugh at the absurdity, be entertained, and awestruck attempting to comprehend how much water was used for its filming.
How do films like this get made and whose job is it to stop them?
posted on 19 Sep 2008I really hated this film. It's non stop action all the way through and the makers assumed that this would make the film exciting. It's quite the contrary. People get shot all the time but usually aren't dead. The damn breaks because and I quote "it was an old damn". eh? What kind of engineering is that? Someone sets fire to the church roof with a bottle of whiskey even though it hasn't stopped raining in hours? Generally, it's the most irritating and tiresome bore fest imaginable. I've given it four out of ten because of the technical quality - imagine the difficulty of filming virtually every seen on or in water. If someone tells you this is there favourite film, looked for webbed feet and gills and then run.
Unusual action movie that pays homages to the westerns of John Wayne and the spectacles of Irwin Allen, and that's why it's good.
posted on 16 Sep 2008The thing is, I'm an action movie buff. I've seen them all, from big-budget Jerry Bruckheimer fares to Golan-Globus cheese-fests. I borrowed this movie from my cousin because I was curious to know what Christian Slater made before he went DTV, and watched it finally one rainy afternoon.I can tell you this: it's an average movie made good. I mean, the acting is pretty average; even by Morgan Freeman, who looks like he's having a blast playing the bad guy, and especially Christian Slater, who repeats his "Broken Arrow" routine here. Randy Quaid gives a good albeit repetitive performance as the sheriff, but Minnie Driver is tolerable in her "church-girl" performance.So why is it good? Well first off it pays off homages to not only one, but TWO - genres of movies. The first genre is the western (action movies wouldn't be here if not for it). I mean, can you not notice? A small town miles away from civilization. The hero (Slater) protecting the money. The honorable outlaw (Freeman) and his bandits surrounding the hero the get the money (without hopefully killing innocents). The all-too-good sheriff (Quaid). The damsel in distress (Driver). The queer folk of the town (Richard Dysart and Betty White in hilarious performances). The "heroes 'n outlaws" story looks like it was told in the fashion of "Gunfight at the OK Corral", and "Rio Bravo" among others. Shootouts and mayhem occur, and they are perfectly paced and thrilling. Not to mention Slater wielding two guns at the same time! The other homage is what really gives the movie it's credibility, in which is pays homage to the disaster movies of the '70s. It's refreshing to see an entire city set flooded for real instead of using backdrops and CGI. And with all that rain pouring down on them, I can't really blame them for missing almost every shot they shoot! And for the final disaster sequence, it is spectacular (albeit pushing logic to the limit). It's as if a John Wayne westerner suddenly got thrust into an Irwin Allen spectacle. It's actually a lot of fun to watch these two scenarios combine, and you don't see a lot of movies like these nowadays.The action sequences and cinematography are nicely filmed and choreographed (courtesy of cinematographer-cum-director Mikael Saloman); for example there is an exciting jet-ski chase through the flooded hallways of a high school which was very impressive, considering the painstaking effort the cast and crew went through (Slater did most of the stunts himself). The music by Christopher Young just screams of excitement and danger awaiting, and the editing is not to shabby.Overall, this is a hugely entertaining action movie, and an unusually good one at that, given the circumstances faced. I was shocked to know this was a box-office bomb (clearly the critics are missing the point). I felt like this was a sure-fire hit. So, if you're a fan of action, westerns, or disaster movies in particular, give this movie a try. You definitely will NOT be disappointed.Entertainment value: 10/10Overall: 7/10
"and into the river we'd dive", that's Springsteen man!
posted on 10 Sep 2008A small town is slowly disappearing under a flood of water. Armoured car guard Slater and his partner find themselves in dangerous waters when a gang of thieves, led by Freeman, set about to steal the money. They kill Slater's partner and now he's on the run with the money in a town that's that's about to be completely flooded.A pedestrian script and cardboard characters nearly sink this one. There's no real story here to speak of, just one chase after another and the excellent cast can't do much with these clichéd ridden and uninteresting characters.But spectacular production values and effects make this suspense yarn more than worth your while. The setting here is beyond amazing and extremely well done and some of the action set pieces are really great. Plus that music score is awesome.With more interesting characters and a (much) better script (loved that Springsteen quote, though) this would have been a bona fide classic.
with water, anything can be put clean!
posted on 30 Jun 2008nice film. the stars in this movie are some established as well as upcoming stars. for once, Quaid doesn't play some hillbilly moron. in this movie he starts out as a lovable sheriff. by the end, you see how unlovable he truly is. Slater does a nice job in this movie. He actually has to act somewhat and show a little action. Slater seemed as the new Kevin Bacon long ago. some of his film roles have been horrible. but, with this film, you can see why Slater is a star. Minnie Driverplays as usual the town snob do gooder, just back from college. She restores churches, but uses profanity. the writing isn't that good in this movie, but with the likes of Slater, Quaid and Freeman in this movie, it works. the directing was decent also, but the scenes of the river over taking the dam seemed as if a 12 year old did it in his backyard. the special effects were alright, but with all the water around covering the town, you'd think you'd have seen more stuff floating around. decent film, good for your collection, at least to me.
Brainless Fun
posted on 04 Apr 2008If you are looking for a movie that has some action and is moderately entertaining without requiring much cerebral activity, this is right up your street. It suited my purposes at the time I rented it so I quite enjoyed it. I had heard nothing about it except for the preview I'd seen. Yes, it's no brilliant piece of movie-making, and no it won't change your life. But it is fun and entertaining and doesn't claim to be anything else. (I was pleasantly surprised with Betty White's performance, a long way from 'Golden Girls')
OK action-thriller, nothing special
posted on 25 Feb 2008HARD RAIN Aspect ratio: 2.39:1 (Super 35)Sound formats: Dolby Digital / DTSWell-produced action-thriller, toplined by Christian Slater and Edward Asner as security guards on armored vehicle duty who are assigned to remove bank funds from a town which is slowly vanishing beneath rising flood waters. Unfortunately, their haul is coveted by a gang of thieves (led by the ever-dependable Morgan Freeman) who become trigger-happy when Slater refuses to hand over the cash. Local artist Minnie Driver helps Slater escape from Freeman's goons after Asner is killed by a stray bullet, prompting the intervention of sheriff Randy Quaid, whose investigation into Slater's 'wild' claims takes an unexpected (though predictable) twist. Betty White and Richard Dysart are a warring elderly couple whose determination to protect their home from looters has unfortunate consequences for heroes and villains alike. Slater and Driver are bland but agreeable, though they're upstaged by Quaid and Freeman, playing characters whose allegiances shift from scene to scene, depending on the circumstances. Eye-popping set-pieces include a jet-ski chase through a flooded school, and a John Woo-style shoot-out in a church, and the movie reaches its spectacular highpoint during a climactic showdown between Good and Evil, when the dam above the town begins to crumble, sending tons of water crashing into the vicinity! OK hokum for indiscriminate action fans, directed by Mikael Salomon.
not worth the work it took to make it
posted on 19 Feb 2008I saw a promotional clip for the movie, in which Minnie Driver talked about her hair being wet for several weeks straight, and Christian Slater talking about the real danger faced by the cast. They're probably wishing they hadn't bothered by now.Okay, the rain is falling and the town is being evacuated. Better lock up the bank and leave. Movie's over. Nope, the bankers decide to put the money in an armored car. The drivers better follow the rest of cars out of town. Movie's over. Nope, they decide to go off on some deserted road and get stranded, then get held up, but Slater escapes and hides the money. Better find a place to hide and stay hidden. Movie's over. Nope, he decides to keep getting found, even though it's dark and the town is deserted. And on and on. Fifteen minutes into the movie, I was checking my watch to see how much longer there was to go.That was some clean floodwater that washed out all of the levees, wasn't it? Although Slater says at one point he might get hepatitis from a wound, none of the characters have any difficulty opening their eyes and seeing everything underwater.And was there a flooded river washing through the town, or was it a big lake? The filmmakers couldn't seem to decide. Sometimes the water washed things away. Sometimes boats floated gently in one place, not even drifting.The cast and crew must have had a miserable time filming this movie. They should have saved their energy. It wasn't worth the work.
Is a hard rain gonna fall? Maybe, but this one's not pathetically awful.
posted on 16 Feb 2008First off, I should identify that there's nothing special about "Hard Rain". It's an action movie in which a bunch of people shout out their lines at various intervals. However, unlike so many action movies, this one isn't idiotic. Granted, the whole thing about a small Indiana town flooding was obviously an excuse for a bunch of action. But "Hard Rain" involves intrigue and questions about who is intertwined with whom. Morgan Freeman, Christian Slater, Randy Quaid, Minnie Driver, and the other cast members do as well as they can, given the material. Maybe nowadays it seems inappropriate to use floods for entertainment, given the tsunami last year and Hurricane Katrina this year, but there's nothing particularly bad about this movie.
Architectural Water
posted on 07 Feb 2008Spoilers herein.If I were to imagine the perfect film, the one that would be at the top of the `most important' lists, one quality it is likely to have is some new cinematic grammar for space using water.The thing that makes film unique is the way it can take your mind to unfamiliar worlds. This is through the eye, and for the result to qualify as a world, it has to have some architectural substance. Perhaps since `Abyss,' the film world has been aware of the challenge and promise that water presents. We've seen some glimpses of the possibilities: the underwater world of `In Dreams,' and the maze of `Alien Resurrection.' `Titanic's' success in my mind was largely because Cameron grazed the possibilities.At some point, someone will create a visual grammar for this, as Welles did for static architecture, and Luhrmann did for the dynamic case. And then we will be a wholly different people, with somewhat expanded conceptual reasoning ability. But until then, we have the attempts.`Hard Rain' shoots high. It was conceived with an eye toward finding a next generation formula and failed because of a simple lack of adventure. Too bad, because the safe approach doomed the picture. Better to have risked more.What is your guess about what would be the breakthough? My guess is that some narrative device will give the vocabulary a hook, like `noir' did for architectural films. It probably will be in the thriller category, because that mode can afford the talent and computer help that will be required. It will probably focus a lot on foam at the edges and have a two-dimensional quality, like Chinese paintings. It will probably have subliminal color, like the bazillions of microscopic colors that make up the white of snow (or the colors in 12th century cathedral glass). It will probably have a fluid, non-human camera derived from the more adventuresome ideas of de Palma, possibly with perceptual frame bleeds like `In the Mood for Love.' The editing will be a whole new deal, mostly rhythmic with some splashes in the face. Darks and lights will alternate in unfamiliar ways. Lenses will extend into the environment. A new style of acting will emerge, more capricious and dynamically focused.And then someone will make this film right, or something like it. And we'll be as shocked in comparison as we are now with Sean Penn compared to John Wayne.
better than Speed 2
posted on 26 Jan 2008This film starts off ok. It started off with a lot of promise and potential - armoured truck - lots of $$$ - lots and LOTS of rain. Unfortunately it never delivers. The film starts to get boring quite quickly and by the end you are almost glad that it is over. If you really must see this film then rent it - it is just worth spending £3 on, luckily a friend pursuaded me not to spend £18 on the DVD. Minnie Driver is very good considering the below average script and she once again gives another convincing american accent but she is still FAR FAR better in the superb Grosse Pointe Blank (well worth £17 for the DVD). Oh and another redeeming feature is that the band "Jars of Clay" provide a superb song (and a rather appropriate one) entitled "Flood".
Hometown letdown
posted on 14 Jan 2008This movie had a special interest for me because it was partially filmed in my hometown, Huntingburg, Indiana; pronounced Huntin'burg in the movie. That, and the fact that Morgan Freeman was in it, was what pulled me through the movie. This script was not exactly "Shawshank" or "Miss Daisy" material for Freeman. In fact, this was down there on the level of Chain Reaction type stuff for Freeman. Although, I think this movie is not worth seeing twice, it did have some goodies for a one-timer. Out of all the notable actors/actresses in it, Randy Quaid gave the most entertaining performance. Certainly nothing deserving of an Oscar, but then again the part did not call for it.Minnie Driver's character annoyed me most of the time, as does most of her characters. Slater did okay. I still like him best in "Interview with a Vampire." However, the best parts were the parts where I could see my hometown's main street flooded and boarded up. Coincidentally, "A League of Thier Own," was also the filming location for the Peach's home stadium. That movie was much better. As was HBO's "Soul of the Game," which was filmed in the same stadium as "League."If you are from Huntingburg then "Hard Rain" is worth seeing. If not, then I would rent that one with Mel Gibson in it about a flood. Not as much action in that one, but a better plot.
Oh, my, what a peace of crap this was...
posted on 21 Dec 2007I' mean, real crap! This movie was airing on television yesterday's afternoon, and I tryed my chances on it. I didn't see it since the very beginning, but as the movie was reaching the end it what was already not good went water down taking the movie as a whole with it.Yes, Morgan Freeman is in it but don't rely on it to think that this would be a good one, because, my God it surely isn't. By far the worst part was when the reservoir cracked, dude how could he have the time to get there, free the girl and run away? And let's not even talk about the last shooting sequence, she acted like a dumb, playmate, but I mean DDUUMMBB, and those
other two shooted the bad guy from several, several, several yards away............Don't forget, this one is only good to wash the ground.Oh, the camera movements inside the school were very interesting, that's all!I can't believe that Graham Yost after writing a master piece called SPEED, wrote this peace of s***!Don't see it, 3/10
a very wet movie
posted on 17 Apr 2009If you like water, you can stand this movie. I guess the actors took a long vacation in a desert after this, everybody is and stays soaking wet. Otherwise it is a great suspense movie. The good and the bad guys switch sides several times, and nothing is really what it seems ... besides wet.Moral: if all the keys fail you, it's good to have a swiss army knife.