Hard Rain (1998) - Spectacle and fun in Salomon's career-killing actioner

♥♥♥♥

 

+ Best Heist Movie of the Year + Best Indiana Movie of the Year + Best Mega-flop Movie of the Year + Costliest Flop of the Year: 57.6 mil. $ range + Worst $ Return of the Year: 0.52 Times its Cost

 

Heavy downpour soaks a man on the run on this strong poster for Mikael Salomon's Hard Rain

Two related armored truck drivers are ambushed by a team of bank-robbers during a torrential rainstorm in a town in Indiana.

 

Hard Rain is written by Graham Yost (Justified (2010-15)) and directed by Mikael Salomon (A Far Off Place (1993)).

Randy Quaid (Davis Rules (1991-92)) is priceless as the greedy sheriff villain in this hugely entertaining action picture. The pace is high from beginning to end; there's humor and charming side characters as well as Christian Slater (Ask My Anything (2014)) and Morgan Freeman (Levity (2003)) skillful as the leads. The score by Christopher Young (The Tower (2002)) is involving, and the action scenes are impressive and sometimes innovative. It is also well done the way Yost manages to get the water element to work for his script, paired with a 3 mil. $ heist.

There are a few loose ends, and the shoot-outs may become a tad too numerous at some point, but Hard Rain is still one heck of an action spectacle.

 

Related posts:

 

Mikael Salomon: 1998 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 

Far and Away (1992) - Howard, Hollywood's sweethearts visit the old West with dull result (cinematographer)

Backdraft (1991) - Ron Howard's giant, stupid Chicago-set firefighter movie (cinematographer) 

 

 

Watch the opening title sequence from the film here

 

Cost: 70 mil. $

Box office: 26.6 mil. $ - 31 mil. $ (different accounts)

= Mega-flop (returned between 0.38-0.44 times its cost)

[Hard Rain was released 16 January (North America) and runs 96 minutes. John Woo was slated to direct but bowed out to do Face/Off. 10 companies were involved in the financing and production of the film. A 6 mil. $ set was created in an aircraft hangar in California. Shooting took place from August 1996 - January 1997 in California, Indiana and Toronto, Canada. The ending of the film was changed due to poor test audience feedback. It opened #5, behind holdover hit Titanic, fellow new releases Good Will Hunting and Fallen and holdover hit As Good As It Gets, to an 8 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it left the top 5 in its 2nd weekend and grossed 19.8 mil. $. One source claims the film only made 6.8 mil. $ abroad, while another claims that its final gross was 31 mil. $ (11.2 mil. $ abroad in that case.) Roger Ebert gave the film a 1/4 star review, translating to 4 notches under this one. Slater was imprisoned for about 90 days on drug and violence charges directly following the premiere. Freeman later publicly dissed the film, and Minnie Driver said in an interview in 1997 (so before the film was even released) that she hated working on it due to the wet conditions (...). Salomon turned to TV and a prolific career directing there but did return theatrically with Freezer (2014). Freeman returned in Deep Impact (1998); Slater in Basil (1998). Hard Rain is rotten at 30 % with a 4.40/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Hard Rain?