I first saw this on cable tv in the late 90s. Revisited it recently after more than two decades. This film came in the era wher lots of action films were already ruling the box office. Films like Broken Arrow, Face Off, Con Air, Rock, T-2, Speed, Die Hard 3, Point Break, Bad Boys, Mission Impossible, etc. The list is endless. These movies had already raised audiences expectations n this is one of the reason Hard Rain got sidelined. Another reason is that during the same era disaster films like Twister, Daylight, Dante's Peak n Volcano, has already satiated the audiences. The last reason is that audiences were not ready to accept Morgan Freeman as a villain, especially after his performance in Shawshank n Unforgiven. This film has lots of action n thrill throughout. I enjoyed it even after so many years. The scene where Freeman goes on a shooting rampage with both hands is amazing. It has some nasty death scenes, watch out for the guy whose eye gets shot thru his spectacles.

Christian Slater plays an armored truck guard who has to deal with thieves, the crooked police, a fierce Indiana rainfall, and a flooded town while trying to protect three million dollars in the company vehicle. Well-done action flick isn't epic-scale, but does have many suspenseful close-calls and colorful characters, plus good performances by Slater, Morgan Freeman, Minnie Driver, and Richard Dysart and Betty White as an elderly couple who didn't evacuate when they were supposed to. Randy Quaid overplays heinously as a trigger happy sheriff, and the continual shootouts in the final third get repetitive, but this scenario (an entire town slowly being submerged) is exceptionally well-captured and the filmmakers didn't forget to add some good humor into the mix. **1/2 from ****

This silly, waterlogged thriller is a little bit different from the usual fare as it manages to mix and match two genres: the disaster movie, in this case the rapidly flooding town, and the more typical thriller, in this case a gang of robbers out for money. The trouble with the film is that it's very superficial, all style over substance, and there is hardly any plot - the characters are introduced, and the action begins.

Still, sometimes it's nice to sit back and disengage the brain, and this film is perfect for exactly that. Nothing ever gets too complicated, and the emphasis is on visual spectacle instead of storytelling. There are indeed some good special effects in the film in terms of the rising flood waters, and I hate to think of all the trouble that the makers must have gone to in building all the flooded sets. The best moments in the film come when characters manage to become trapped in flooding areas - Driver gets handcuffed to a banister, Slater locked in a prison cell - and strive to stay alive. These bits are clever and pretty exciting.

One problem I did have was with the violence level. There isn't much of one. This feels like a 12 certificate film, apart from a few moments in which people get shot and blood sprays out of them. Now, this is too little bloodshed for seasoned action fans, and yet too much for children, so it's difficult to determine the target audience. The acting is pretty much varied. Christian Slater looks to be enjoying himself in the brief stint he had as an action hero, while Morgan Freeman shows us that he can't help to be a good guy even when he's essentially bad, just like in CHAIN REACTION. Randy Quaid once again goes over the top as a psychotic sheriff, while Minnie Driver is a tough, likable heroine. Edward Asner fills the role of a crusty old man very well, but the supporting cast is full of clichéd characters and stereotypes.

There are some fun moments: a race against time to stop getting electrocuted, a chase through the flooded halls of a school, and an unexpected plot twist, but in the end this film fails because it's played for laughs a bit too much. As a straight action film it could have been a lot better. Still, if you're looking for thrills you could do worse.