Hard Rain

Released By:

Paramount Home Video

Features:

1998; 96 Min; Rated R; Dolby Digital: 5.1 English; Dolby Surround: English, French; Widescreen (2.35).

Extras:

Theatrical Trailer.

Review:

Hard Rain is a film I purchased for two reasons. One, it's an action flick, so there's bound to be some demo material to play with. Second, I found it on sale at a great price.

The film's plot, if that what you can call it, is simple. Christian Slater plays Tom, a security guard for an armored car  company. He, along with his partner Charlie (Ed Asner), go to a small town to pick up the main bank's money, while the town is getting flooded. Jim, played by Morgan Freeman, and a few of his cohorts attempt to rob the truck, when it is caught in the flood. Charlie's shot, and Tom runs away, actually swims away, with the three million dollars, and stashes the money to protect it. When Tom goes to seek shelter, he stumbles into a church, and is accused of looting by Karen (Minnie Driver). When arrested by the sheriff (Randy Quaid), Tom pleads his story, everyone is enlightened of the situation, and the chase begins.

As a movie, Hard Rain is simple mindless fun. It's predictable and implausible. That's ok, so was Armageddon, which I've spent money on twice. It contain some well staged action pieces, considering that everything was shot in water tank. For amusement, Richard Dysart (L.A. Law) and Betty White (The Golden Girls) were thrown into the mix as a bitter, paranoid couple. I guess their residuals from the syndication of their shows are running out. Overall, the movie is well paced, it never dwells on something long enough for you to question it's legitimacy.

Technically this disc is good. The 2.35 transfer shows no signs of artifacting, and considering this whole film was shot in the dark, or with filters, that's quite an accomplishment. The sound won't blow you away but is very well mixed.The Dolby Digital mix is constantly active in all of the channels, as I expected. It it wasn't, it would be a pretty weak storm ;-) This being a typical Paramount disc is totally featureless. There just on trailer, they could have at least put the original trailer on the disc for amusement (when it was titled The Flood).

I give the film a rank of 5.5 out of 10.

On a scale of 1 to 10, I'll give the disc presentation a 7, with no Bonus Biscuits.

Dan Linzmeier, FIT Productions
Fitprod@aol.com
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