6. Hard Rain (1998)
This tale of a lone armoured truck guard (
Christian Slater) and his battle with a thief (
Morgan Freeman), a small town sheriff (
Randy Quaid) and a hell of a lot of rain is the second of my guilty pleasures! Its not a fantastic film, but Freeman is his usual accomplished self and its interesting to see him playing the initial villain. Slater is also unusually engaging and this is one of very few performances that I actually like him in (his best of course being in True Romance though)! From the same writer-producer team (Graham Yost and Mark Gordon, respectively) that made
Speed (1994), the narrative is suspenseful and suitably action packed if not as consummate as their earlier offering. The initial chase through the deserted town is particularly taut and works tremendously well due to the eerie setting. The action scenes are what make the film so enjoyable, as the plot is purely mindless fun! The special effects are still impressive though and make the film more enjoyable. The climactic scenes at heroine Karens (
Minnie Driver) house and the Church shes restoring are thrilling and the action is exciting: boats flying through the air, shoot outs, firebombs etc! Although the extreme weather is the basis of the plot, it is the action/thriller elements that drive the narrative forward.