We play hard, but we rain harder…
It’s raining… hard, all over Huntingberg. A dam break on higher ground threatens to leave the small town awash, so the residents have been evacuated, leaving only a few cops, some die-hard evacuation order breakers and Tom (Christian Slater) and his Uncle Charlie, armoured car drivers on the way back to base with a full payload of… three small bags.
With immaculate timing the armoured vehicle becomes stuck in rising waters. The only people around to ‘help’ are Jim (Morgan Freeman) and the small group of criminals that he leads, which I guess makes Jim a criminal too. (How can Morgs be a criminal I ask you? The man is a global treasure!)
Regardless of what I might think Jim is a crim, just not a very good one. Despite having Tom heavily outnumbered and with no means of contact to the outside world – what with the rain being especially hard and all – Jim manages to somehow let Tom and ALL THE CASH get away.
Now here’s where things get stupid(er). Tom escapes unseen with three bags in tow, all the way to the deserted town, where he instantly manages to come to the attention of all 4 people left in the town, a crazy local girl named Karen (Minnie Driver) who has decided to stay behind to do up a church (!) and the local cops lead by boneheaded Sherriff Mike (Randy Quaid), who in his bumblings represents more of a risk to Tom than the most ruthless of criminals.
So because Tom can’t hide in a deserted town full of empty houses. In the rain. In the dark. We get an hour or so of Tom and Karen being chased all over and shot at by people on jet skis, boats and pool ponies as they invent new ways to be rediscovered. I mean anyone who has seen more than two films knows where this is ending up – and it does.
If Tom managed to find an empty house, any empty house, and find a sofa to lay up for 8 hours or so he would not only have saved himself, but he would have saved us from watching this mediocrity, and more importantly saved the immortal Morgan Freeman from bashing in a couple of earrings, wearing a cowboy hat and spitting out a couple of F bombs to give the appearance that he is somehow hard.
Final Rating – 5.5 / 10. The only thing ‘hard’ about this film is how hard it is to believe it was greenlit by people who thought they could bring something new to the table.
