Thoughts on Hard Rain

 

via Giphy/Courtesy Paramount

"You better get out of here."
"What about the money? Gonna turn it in?"
"Gotta turn it it."
*Jim (Morgan Freeman) doesn't believe that Tom (Christian Slater) would consider doing this*

I try not to have a thesis when I'm doing Thoughts On, but a honey of an idea came to mind with the movies of 1998. From start to finish, it was a fascinating year for capital-S Stars, whether in ascendancy, security or decline. Jim, whose machinations caused or aided misery for Tom, Karen (Minnie Driver) and Sheriff Collig (Randy Quaid), was supposed to die at the end of Hard Rain. As the story goes, he was spared and got to collect at least some of the ill-gained $3 million, because test audiences felt "Morgan can't die! ... He should get some money." That's being a movie star, people. When the audience wants you to win, no matter what.

Hard Rain also apparently began life as "The Flood," a title that was dropped so that the movie didn't come across as another disaster film. I can understand the reasoning in the wake of the Dante's Peak-Volcano duel, considered to have hurt both movies, but Rain nevertheless has some disaster film elements. It also subverts the expectations of the genre, like having the progressively worsening rain and flood event be underway as the story begins, a limited ensemble and largely resisting having a central set to watch get destroyed. The church Karen's restoring comes closest, but we never see it look attractive. At least Titanic had impressive art direction. Rain has Huntingburg, Indiana, which I was learned after the movie is a real place. In the movie, it just comes across as a bunch of obvious facades bobbing along in a tank.

"We're setting traps."

"That's illegal, Doreen."

"You gonna arrest us, sheriff? Hell, are you even sheriff anymore, sheriff? Didn't you lose an election? I sure as hell know I didn't vote for you. Neither did Henry."

*Doreen (Betty White) and Collig argue a bit more before she returns to nagging Henry (Richard Dysart)*

"(to himself) God'll understand if you have to drown her in the basement, Henry."

The morality in Rain, directed by Mikael Salomon and written by Graham Yost, is all over the place. "Good guys" Tom and Karen get to win. They're alive and are clearly going to hook up once the rain stops. But they also let Jim go free. Jim, who organized the scheme with Tom's Uncle Charlie (Ed Asner), a longtime armored truck driver. I'll give this for Rain. Once you know that Charlie was in on the plan, it resolves the credibility issue of why he would continue to do his job, entering into an evacuating community. Speaking of doing one's job, I liked that they gave a credible reason (other than ostentatiously taking the high road) for Collig to be working during the weather event. It's so he can get his final pay. I actually liked the twist of Collig deciding to go after the money, intending it as a belated reward for hard, soon-to-be-forgotten work. What I didn't like is Deputy Phil (Peter Murnik) having the moral crisis that I think Collig should have had.

Anyway, most of Rain's characters have understandable purposes within the story and movie itself. But then we have Doreen and Henry, comic relief let down by an "aww ..." ending rather than a clever punchline*. Collig's other deputies are a would-be rapist (Mark Rolston) and a hick (Wayne Duvall), respectively. As for Jim's gang, we have two reasonably competent guys (Ricky Harris and Dann Florek) and Kenny (Michael A. Goorjian). For the life of me, I could not understand why Kenny's death was depicted as a tragedy. The dumb ass killed Charlie and thoroughly annoyed me until his electrocution and belated last moments. At least in old school disaster films, tragic losses are usually genuine.

*Henry finally telling Doreen in their penultimate scene to STFU isn't that great, either. Honestly, it might have been better for those two to get killed rather than have her contrition after his near-death experience. Or having Tom and Karen get reunited with them (and Doreen's still bitching) when they're finally rescued.

Rain had a secure star (Freeman, who got top billing), a then-descending star (second-billed Slater, who also produced the movie) and an ascending star (Driver**). What is doesn't have is much fun or that many thrills. At least twice in my notes, I prematurely wrote "FINALLY, an explosion." I'll give a polite nod to the jet skis through the middle school chase sequence, but on the whole, Hard Rain is all wet.

**You do have to wonder if the folklore is true and that a poorly-regarded film released close to an awards nomination can hurt someone's chances. Is it possible that Rain hindered Minnie's chance to be recognized with an Oscar for Good Will Hunting, or is that like I said earlier, just folklore?

"Wait! What about the dam?"

"It'll be fine."

"You said if it goes, it'll wipe out the whole town."

*comically absurd zoom in for Quaid's close up*

" ... Screw the town."

Not Recommended.

Thoughts:

-- "Hey, did you teach your students how to make things like this (bomb)?" "Have you been in a high school recently? My students taught me how to make stuff like this."

-- Box Office: Grossing nearly $19.9 million domestically on a reported $70 million budget, this opened at No. 5 and ranked No. 88 for 1998.

-- Critic's Corner: Stephen Hunter, Washington Post, was most engaged when the movie hit upon how truly overwhelming the situation would be. "It's Titanic without lifeboats," he wrote. "But no one responds to this as a threat. In fact, no one ever seems remotely agitated." Todd McCarthy, Variety: "(It's unbelievable) that all these people would expend all their energies trying to shoot one another when they are so imperiled to begin with." "Who wants to watch actors spend an entire film with rain dripping down their faces?" Owen Gleiberman asked in Entertainment Weekly. "After a while ... you just want to hand them a towel."

-- Critic's Corner, the actors: "One of those movies that undermine suspense by meeting the expectations of audiences that equate survival with casting," Lawrence Van Gelder wrote in The New York Times. "Never is there any doubt about who is going to emerge from this night of violence." Hunter, who called Slater "a walking gee-whiz with legs," was appalled that Morgan was in such a lousy movie. "No American actor could do more in the right part than this brilliant fellow, so it feels like sacrilege and waste when he settles for less." Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: "Freeman is slumming, Slater is a standard-issue hero." McCarthy: "Slater makes for a bland action hero, while Quaid and Driver are scarcely asked to test their talents."

-- Hey, It's early 1998!: "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," Roger Ebert observed.

-- Hey, It's Middle America!: Huntingburg's businesses include the still-going McDonalds (whose arches are seen submerged) and possibly a Denny's and the near-death Sears (across from Henry and Doreen's). Tom remarks that anyone with a scanner bought at RadioShack (also near-death) could hear his and Charlie's call.

-- Betty White's third act as pop culture icon was already underway in 1998, when she was asked "10 Stupid Questions" by Entertainment Weekly. She revealed that she didn't catch a cold during shooting Rain, as the water was mostly lukewarm. Also, her and Ed Asner's schedules never intertwined, which is a bummer.

-- "Come on Charlie, it's a flood. You're gonna get a little wet. Take it easy."

-- Next: Fallen. On deck: Slappy and the Stinkers.