HARD RAIN RATING: 7 / 10 --> Good movie
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PLOT: Four criminals hold up an armored truck during its exit of a "soon-to-be-flooded" town. Unfortunately for them, one of the drivers escapes into the town with the dough, and turns the empty town's water filled streets, into a cat-and-mouse playground between the bad guys, himself and the local sheriff and crew.
CRITIQUE: Popcorn Movie (definition): A movie which based on its merits of proper story-telling techniques, unique style and believable characters, would fail on all counts. A Popcorn Movie is a film that allows you to turn off your brain before viewing, crunch down on plenty of nachos and popcorn without having to worry about missing any relevant dialogue, and revel in its lunacy of plot, excessive action sequences and shallow objectives. It is NOT a film to take seriously. With depth of character non-existent, this type of film allows you to enjoy the unemotional attachment to each person in the movie, and soak in only its relevant goals of fun, divertissement and campy fodder. With checks on all counts above, this kind of movie generally doesn't score more than a respectable 7/10 (ARMAGEDDON topped 8/10 because it actually managed to add some emotional attachment to some of its characters...a no-no in "pure popcorn" film), but does provide some brainless entertainment to all those looking for a quick fix of empty amusement.
Originally titled THE FLOOD, this movie is packed with superficial characters (save Freeman who pulls off some three-dimension), endless chases and gunfights, plenty of rain, water and more rain, and enough cheezy dialogue and plot holes to make any other "Popcorn Movie" candidate beet-red jealous. All in all, a wonderful representation of a Popcorn Movie done right, with an extra nod to the editors who managed to keep this puppy timed to the perfect length of any ideal Popcorn Movie...90 minutes. Bravo to all involved!
Review Date: April 3, 1999
Director: Mikael Salomon
Writer: Graham Yost
Producers: Ian Bryce, Mark Gordon and Gary Levinsohn
Actors: Christian Slater as Tom
Morgan Freeman as Jim
Randy Quaid as Sheriff
Minnie Driver as Karen
Genre: Action
Year of Release: 1998
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