Hard Rain 

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Director: Mikael Salomon
Cast: Christian Slater, Morgan Freeman, Randy Quaid, Minnie Driver

Christian Slater has to be bummed—the day after his movie "Hard Rain" opens, he gets shipped up-country to jail for 3 months. What to do? Relabel the flick as a Morgan Freeman vehicle and go to town. Slater has even more reason to be bummed—the movie turns out the be the only half-decent thing he's done in a half-decade.

When their armored truck is stopped by floodwaters, Ed Asner and Slater quickly realize they're in the middle of a hijacking. With $3 million at stake, our hero hides the money when Asner is shot, leading both good guys (the sheriff, played with usual gusto by Randy Quaid) and bad guys (Freeman, with his cohort of predictably dumb goons) on a race to find the cash. Enter Minnie Driver as a reluctant evacuee, and you've got a smorgasbord of wet situations to get through.

The flood is terrific, providing script ideas well worth the price of a matinee admission: a jet ski chase through a flooded high school, a frantic de-handcuffing as the waters rise over our heroes, even a whole dam breaking through and destroying the town. Sure, the dialogue is clunky, but you're not here to trade witty persiflage over Deconstructing Harry, you're here to see stuff blow up. And blow up it does, my friend. A solid second-rate thriller awaits you. With Mark Rolston and Betty White as Ms. Doreen Sears.

—Ian Williams

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