FILM REVIEW OF ''I CAN DO BAD ALL BY MYSELF" (2009)

As entertaining as the latest Madea comedy is, writer & director Tyler Perry’s seventh movie “I Can Do Bad All By Myself” (*** out of ****) doesn’t generate half as much humor and heartache as earlier Madea entries. No, “I Can Do Bad” doesn’t top “Madea Goes to Jail.” First, not only does everybody’s favorite pistol-packing grandmother Maybelle "Madea" Simmons not pack a pistol, but she also spends more time off screen. In other words, she doesn’t break the law and end up either in court or jail. She qualifies more as a supporting character used for comic relief. Second, “I Can Do Bad All By Myself” boasts no surprises. Indeed, most of this sermonizing melodrama about seeking redemption from Jesus focuses on the trials and tribulations of a liquor-swilling lounge warbler who finds her life suddenly turned topsy-turvy when her three motherless niece and nephews as well as a Latino immigrant take up residence in her townhouse.

No, despite its inspirational message, “I Can Do Bad” probably isn’t designed entirely for Sunday night churchgoers, though there are several religious-themed songs sung. The theme of child abuse rears its ugly head about three-fourths of the way through this 113 minute epic while the heroine wallows in an adulterous affair with another wife’s husband. Usually, if you can figure out a movie before the characters figure out what is happening, the movie isn’t as imaginative. Perry counteracts the wholesale predictability of “I Can Do Bad” with a charismatic cast, including Taraji P. Henson, Gladys Knight, Adam Rodriguez, Brian White, and Marvin L. Winans.

“I Can Do Bad” gets off on the right foot. Madea (Tyler Perry in a dual cross-dressing role) awakens to the noise of burglars in her house, but she cannot rouse Joe (Tyler Perry) to check out the disturbance. Madea catches Jennifer (Hope Olaide Wilson), Manny (Kwesi Boakye) and Byron (Freddy Siglar) in the act of stealing Joe’s VCR so they can see it for food. Madea and Joe sit this terrible threesome down for a meal and try to pry out of them information about who is responsible for them. Jennifer tries to act tough, but Madea acts tougher. “Honey,” she informs the teenage girl, “I been to jail. I will shank you.” Afterward, Madea goes to work on her two younger brothers who confess that their guardian has been gone for several days. Eventually, Madea learns that they are relatives of April (Taraji P. Henson of “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”) who sings in a local nightclub. When Madea shows up at April’s front door, the grouchy singer isn’t happy to see them. Typically, April sleeps off her alcoholic binges until the late afternoon with another woman’s husband Randy (Brian White of “12 Rounds”) who cannot stand his own three munchkins and a forthcoming one, too. Basically, Randy manages to foot the bills for both households, but he sleeps with April for obvious reasons.

Tanya (Mary J. Blige of “Prison Song”), who employs April to sing, breaks down and chides her about her selfishness and her alcoholism. April ignores Tanya and keeps on drinking. When matriarchal Madea comes banging on April’s door with the children, April explains that they belong to her sister. April’s sister died from crack abuse, and April’s long-suffering mother now cares for the trio. Nobody knows where April’s mom is until Pastor Brian (gospel star Marvin L. Winans of “Mama, I Want to Sing”) and churchgoing songster Wilma (Gladys Knight of “Hollywood Homicide”) investigate and visit April about 45 minutes into the plot with the tragic news. April’s mother, it seems, climbed aboard a city bus to go to work and died from an aneurism in route. Everybody, including the bus driver, thought that she was sleeping.

Initially, April wants nothing to do with her niece and nephews, but Jennifer is caught shoplifting at a corner drugstore. Byron, it seems, suffers from diabetes and Jennifer knows how to handle it. Of course, Randy is dead set against the kids moving in with April, but teenage Jennifer catches his gimlet eye. Meanwhile, a virile Columbian immigrant who works as a handyman, Sandino (Adam Rodriguez of CBS-TV’s “C.S.I.: Miami”), shows up at Pastor Brian’s Zion Liberty Baptist Church looking for work. Pastor Brian promises to pay him for some church repairs and then sends him over to work out his rent in April’s house. April and Sandino don’t get off on the right foot and Randy doesn’t like him period. She allots space for Sandino in her basement. Meantime, April pawns her relatives off on Madea to repay her for their depredations in her house. Pastor Brian, Wilma, Tanya, and even Sandino go to work on the callous April. When she sees the life of sin that she has been living, the self-destructive singer converts and follows Madea’s advice: "If you give some good things to people, good things come back to you--most of the time."

The themes of juvenile delinquency, selfishness, self-sacrifice, and ego are hammered home through songs and sermons both that often belabor the point and rob it of any shred of subtlety. Henson really shines as the protagonist who sees the light and changes her behavior and Rodriguez emerges as her knight-in-shining armor. Brian White makes a strong impression as the cheating husband. Nevertheless, Madea still trumps them all with her warped sense of humor. The best scene in “I Can Do Bad” has Madea regaling Jennifer with her side-splitting story about Jonah and the whale. “That’s when Noah showed up, with his arch, the St. Louis arch.” It is a tribute to Perry’s skill as a filmmaker and the charisma of his sturdy cast that together they can make you sniffle, sob, and cry aloud at the drop of every cliché in “I Can Do Bad.”

FILM REVIEW OF "SORORITY ROW" (2009)

A prank gone wrong in “Whisper” director Stewart Hendler’s “Sorority Row,” an unsavory, sometimes savage, but smirking R-rated remake of the vintage 1983 slasher “The House on Sorority Row,” sets off a succession of sadistic slayings. “Good Luck Chuck” scenarist Josh Stolberg and TV writer Peter Goldfinger have adapted and updated Mark Rosman’s screenplay about blood, gore, and babes and supplemented the savagery with sardonic “Heathers” humor. Not only has Hendler orchestrated the butchery and bitchery with style but he has also conjured up an atmospheric slash-a-thon that delivers several shocks and surprises. These gals and guys aren’t as idiotic as the usual slasher movie victims. Indeed, more than one girl survives.

“Quarantine” lenser Ken Sing enhances the grisly quality of this mass murderer melodrama with his grainy, raw-edged widescreen cinematography and he wobbles his camera to heighten the suspense. At the same time, editor Elliot Greenberg carves up the action with such rhythm that each jolt delivers stop-in-your-tracks impact. You’ll jump at most of these bolts from the black, especially the sound effects of sharp objects either penetrating or caroming off bodies. Little of this would register were it not for superb sound engineering. The ensemble cast that includes Briana Evigan, Leah Pipes, Rumer Willis, and Jamie Chung constitute all the pretty maids in this “Row” that the mysterious slayer sets out to slay. This mass murderer doesn’t discriminate when it comes to killing, even innocent bystanders succumb to the villain’s pimped out four-way tire iron weapon. The worst thing that you can say about “Sorority Row” is that the fire department takes their own sweet time responding to the fiery finale. Of course, if they had arrived earlier, they’d have interfered with the showdown between the killer and victims. Nevertheless, the last quarter hour serves up thrills and chills that pay off with a clever ending that likely may yield a sequel.

The action unfolds at a bacchanal off campus at a sorority house. Five mischievous wenches of the sorority Theta Pi decide to humiliate a guy, Garrett (Matt O’Leary of “Brick”), who has cheated on his girlfriend with the prank to end all pranks. They have supplied Garrett with what he believes are roofies, and he has dosed Megan (Audrina Patridge of “Into the Blue 2”) with them so that she appears to have passed out. She awakens as Garrett is about to take advantage of her and then apparently dies while her devoted sisters gaze on in horror. The queen bee of the bunch, Jessica (Leah Pipes of “Fingerprints”), knows that Megan is playing possum. Jessica, Cassidy (Briana Evigan of “Step Up 2: The Streets”), Claire (Jamie Chung of “Dragonball: Evolution”) and Ellie (Rumer Willis of “Wild Cherry”) pile into a van with Megan’s limp body and a distraught Garrett. They head off to a mine in the middle of nowhere. Once they arrive, Jessica suggests that they hack the body up into pieces so it will be harder for anybody to find. Meanwhile, Megan records the scene with her cell phone. The girls spread out to collect rocks while Garrett empties his stomach on the ground. He musters his nerve and seizes a four-way tire iron from the van. When nobody is watching him, he sinks one end of it into Megan’s chest before anybody can stop him. The horrified girls close ranks in the name of ‘sisterhood and solidarity’ and cover up the crime. Unceremoniously, they dump Megan’s bloody body into an abandoned well.

Eight months later, at a graduation reception at the Theta Pi house, one of the girls in on the conspiracy, Ellie, shrieks when she thinks that she has seen the dead girl Megan walking among them. In fact, Ellie saw Megan’s younger sister Maggie (Caroline D’Amore of “Daydreamer”) who is visiting the sorority. The girls plan to celebrate another bacchanalian revelry that evening once their crusty house mother, Mrs. Crenshaw (Carrie Fisher of the first “Star Wars” trilogy) vacates the premises. Meantime, the mysterious killer dons a “Scream” monk’s robe with hood and wields a four-way tire iron modified with other forms of cutlery. This weapon compares favorably to the weapons that other serial killers in slasher movies have armed themselves with over the years. This cunning individual follows Chugs (Margo Harshman of “Fired Up”) to her shrink’s office where she plans to score prescription drugs after she performs oral sex on the crooked physician. When Chugs isn’t looking, the killer sends his exotic weapon spinning through the air tomahawk style so it lodges in the good doctor’s forehead. The killer sneaks up on Chugs while she is lying on her back with an expensive bottle of liquor in her lips and shoves a bottle down her throat and then shatters it. Another girl has a spear run through her mouth pinning her head to a wall. Yet another dies from a flare gun cartridge that melts in her mouth and turns her face into bubble wrap.

Leah Pipes takes the cake as the nastiest sister of the bunch, while Briana Evigan qualifies as the nicest. She is the one who wanted to call the authorities while the others bundled Megan up in Cassidy’s coat and tossed her in the well. Meanwhile, elderly Carrie Fisher has a couple of scenes as the cantankerous Theta Pi house mother, but she cannot hit the side of barn with a pump action shotgun. The writers throw in a couple of red herrings to keep us guessing about the identity of the killer. The cast is persuasive even when the action is not. There is a whole lot of stabbing going on along with irresponsible drinking and bare breasted babes in a shower scene. In the original “House on Sorority Row,” seven girls covered up the crime while only five try to here. “Sorority Row” is a good slasher movie that is worth watching more than once.

FILM REVIEW OF "A PERFECT MURDER"

The people who remade the crafty Alfred Hitchcock suspense thriller “Dial M for Murder” (1954) as “A Perfect Murder,” with Michael Douglas, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Viggo Mortensen, clearly knew their business. As cinematic remakes rate, “A Perfect Murder” (*** OUT OF ****) qualifies as a commendably entertaining, often hard-edged, but superior spouse-murdering spectacle which should baffle and captivate any armchair sleuth right up to its explosive, slam-bang finale. Not only have former Steven Seagal action director Andrew Davis and freshman scenarist Patrick Smith Kelly, cleverly updated this vintage but tawdry tale of deceit, but they have also condensed several plot elements so that the story is both more palatable as well as less predictable. Industry insiders claim that test audiences hated the initial ending, so Douglas and Paltrow came back to reshoot a new ending. Consequently, “A Perfect Murder” is never a slavish scene-by-scene remake of “Dial M for Murder,” but a deferential, no-nonsense, white knuckled yarn, with gritty touches of 1990s amorality.

In “A Perfect Murder,” ruthless but financially strapped tycoon Steven Taylor (Michael Douglas) discovers that his elegant but unfaithful wife Emily (Gwyneth Paltrow) is cheating on him with sleazy artist David Shaw (Viggo Mortensen). Emily justifies her extramarital affair because Steven suffocates her with his domineering ways. According to Emily, Steven also fails to fulfill her emotional needs. On the contrary, David quenches Emily’s passion and makes her happy. Steven confronts David early in the movie at a diner party that Emily had planned to attend alone. Changing his mind at the last possible minute, Steven accompanies Emily to the festivity where he catches his wife off-guard as she is chatting with Shaw. David and Steven speak briefly and Shaw states that he received his art degree from Berkeley.

Later, Taylor exposes Shaw for the fraud that he is, and then blackmails him. David turns out to be an ex-con with two strikes against him. Moreover, Taylor threatens to alert the police about Shaw for an unsolved crime hanging over the ex-con’s head. Not only has David lied to Steven about his shady past, but also he has lied to poor Emily. Anyway, Steven offers David a $100-thousand dollars up front to kill Emily, and he promises an additional $400-thousand on completion of the homicide. Incredibly, David agrees. Shaw prefers Taylor’s loot to Emily’s love. Steven details a simple plan. He has stashed a key outside their apartment which David can use to gain access to their apartment without arousing suspicion. While Steven is at his club for the evening playing cards, he intends to call Emily. When Emily answers on the kitchen phone, David can slip up behind and strangle her. After he murders Emily, David is supposed to tamper with the door locks to make it appear as if a burglary had occurred.

Veteran director Andrew Davis (“The Fugitive” and “Code of Silence”) and scenarist Patrick Smith Kelly have revamped the stodgy 1950s’ “Dial M for Murder” scenario and eliminated several problems that hampered the Hitchcock film. Obviously, Hitchcock could not depict the sexual and criminal elements in the story with the same artistic latitude available to contemporary filmmakers. Rated “R” for ‘restricted,’ “A Perfect Murder” contains scenes of implied nudity, simulated sex, murder, and profanity, with 9 “f--k” words, 2 “sh-t” words, and 5 “hells” sprinkled in for local color. People are either stabbing or shooting at each other in “A Perfect Murder,” and the three principle characters stalk each other like rabid gunmen in a spaghetti western. Davis keeps the sex, violence, and profanity at comparably moderate, non-gratuitous levels. Nevertheless, “A Perfect Murder” spills more blood and portrays its violence with great authenticity than “Dial M for Murder,” but nothing approaching the visceral sadism of earlier Michael Douglas outings such as “Basic Instinct” and “Fatal Attraction.” Dutifully, Davis and Kelly have left some things intact. For instance, the key still plays a pivotal part in convicting the killer.

Aside from conforming this minor Hitchcock classic to today’s more realistic standards, Davis and Kelly have actually improved on the plot. In “Dial M for Murder,” Alfred Hitchcock devoted vast intervals of time to setting up the involved story with reams of exposition. Exposition is the vitally important stuff about the story that the audience must know to appreciate the actions of the characters. None of this information, however, is readily accessible, so the characters have to mention it in their dialogue so that the audience will know what is happening. Intricately conceived as “Dial M” was, the characters spent for too much time explaining the story. In “Dial M,” Ray Milland played the role that Michael Douglas took over in “A Perfect Murder.” Milland shares an entire scene with the murderer in “Dial M” where he must remind the killer that they are old school chums separated over the years. He reveals the killer’s wicked past and blackmails him, too. Happily, the loquacity that clutters the dialogue in “Dial M” has been pared down to the absolute, bare essentials, so “A Perfect Murder” doesn’t stall out on dialogue ad nauseam. The characters in “Dial M” stand around and discuss their predicaments, while the characters in “A Perfect Murder” go out to do things.

Just as cinematic morality has changed pervasively since 1954, so too has the technology. Cell phones, for example, have replaced standard wired telephones in Steven’s intricate scheme to kill his wife. Nearly all of the main leads as well as the secondary characters have been changed. Davis and Kelly have either enlarged or shrunken their roles. The murderer and the lover in “Dial M” consist of two entirely different characters. Gone is the lover played by Robert Cummings from the Hitchcock film, while Anthony Dawson’s murderer is combined with the lover. Condensing these two roles, the filmmakers of “A Perfect Murder” streamline the plot and make it more exciting. In “Dial M,” John Williams played the stylist British detective who figured prominently in unraveled the mystery. As Det. Mohammed Karaman, his counterpart in “A Perfect Murder,” David (“Executive Decision”) Suchet occupies less screen time. He doesn’t harass the Michael Douglas villain as much as Williams’ detective did to Milland in “Dial M”. Curiously enough, the producers here make an issue out of the detective’s Arabic heritage. During the interrogation scene, Det. Karaman and Emily share a moment when she converses with him in his native language. As peripheral characterization, this is fine, but the filmmakers never integrate it into the plot. It makes you wonder if this language gimmick played a bigger part in the resolution of the action, but got cut out when the ending changed.

One of the biggest changes in “A Perfect Murder” is wife’s role. Unlike the Grace Kelly character from “Dial M” who remained largely passive, Gwyneth Paltrow plays an aggressive multi-lingual U.N. translator and aide to the U.S. Ambassador. Paltrow’s unfaithful wife gets out often enough to learn incriminating things about her husband that Grace Kelly never did in the Hitchcock original. The scene where Paltrow struggles desperately against her assailant is better than the similar scene where Grace Kelly stabbed her killer with a pair of scissors.

They’ve changed the physical settings, too. The action in “Dial M” strays only occasionally from the cramped quarters of the London apartment inhabited by Ray Milland and Grace Kelly. Transplanting the plot to America, Davis and Kelly open up the action and venture out into the means streets of New York City. Davis and Kelly ditch the expressionistic English courtroom scenes where Grace Kelly’s character was convicted of murdering the man who tried to strangle her, too! In “A Perfect Murder,” Davis and Kelly discard this part of the original plot from Frederick Knot’s play.
Veteran action helmer Andrew Davis keeps the story moving swiftly along so that the complicated plot never decelerates the action. Davis doesn’t let the pacing lollygag. He stages the action for maximum impact. The fight scenes are brutal but brief. Davis and cinematographer Dariusz Wolski often film the action so that the perspective that audiences have implicates them in the skullduggery. Wolski’s dark, brooding Rembrandt lighting enhances the air of danger. The standard shot in “A Perfect Murder” is either a close-up or a medium shot that uncomfortably confines the characters. Davis builds considerable suspense and tension by surprising his audience at intervals with sudden off-screen action that explodes on camera. Characters come barreling off-screen to smash into other unsuspecting characters on screen. These sure fire tactics guarantee that audiences will jump. Along with production designer Philip Rosenberg, Davis creates a murky, hostile environment for his characters to inhabit.

Perhaps the worst flaw in “A Perfect Murder” is the unappealing characters. None of these people deserve much sympathy. A dapper Michael Douglas gives off sinister vibes. Steven Taylor resembles Douglas’s Oscar winning performance as Gordon Gecko from Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street.” Douglas projects an effortlessly cocksure attitude that makes him an ideal thug. He wears dark apparel, and he is constantly in the midst of a scheme and a lie. As his wife Emily, Gwyneth Paltrow comes closest to attracting sympathy because she is the most vulnerable character. Nevertheless, Emily’s extramarital affair set off this chain reaction, so she isn’t entirely whitewashed. Although she wants to do the right thing, Emily is basically as selfish about herself as are both Steven and David. When we first glimpse her, she is wallowing in a spacious but seedy loft apartment with David (‘G.I. Jane’s” Viggo Mortensen). Mortensen delivers another solid performance as a scumbag. Momentarily, David’s vile painter appears to outfox both Steven and Emily. As competitors, David and Steven are almost evenly matched, though Douglas’s screen image wins out over the lesser known Mortensen.

Indeed, the Patrick Kelly screenplay bears its share of implausibilities, but so too did “Dial M.” Obviously, society does not allow movies to glamorize the act of murder, especially by letting a character commit murder without paying for the crime. Consequently, sharp and sagacious as Steven Taylor is, he is outsmarted once by the double-crossing David and later by Emily, who wins the upper hand in one of his inconsistently ignorant moments. Neither of these crucial incidents is telegraphed in the script. They occur straight out of the blue with zero foreshadowing, so that the audiences as well as Steven are caught entirely by surprise. Sure, that’s cheating, but the dramatic revelation that comes with each incident justifies it. Perhaps the biggest flaw in both movies is that a strong man cannot overpower a weak woman. Ultimately, between the two films, “A Perfect Murder” has more flash and headlong momentum than the literate and stage bound “Dial M for Murder.”

FILM REVIEW OF ''G.I. JANE'' (1997)

Actress Demi Moore shaves her head, dons fatigues, and totes a machine gun in British director Ridley Scott’s opportune but exploitative “G.I. Jane” (** OUT OF ****), a sexual equality polemic about the first female to graduate as a Navy SEAL. This lackluster basic training epic serves up a volatile but exemplary message about equal rights and the armed forces that cost the filmmakers the aid of the Department of Defense. When “G.I. Jane” isn’t preaching gender parity, this cynical but slickly done “Top Gun” clone is gung ho on showing Moore kicking butt in the kind of role her husband Bruce Willis excels. Sadly, “G.I. Jane’s” melodramatic storyline combines with its juvenile heroics to undermine what little credibility it musters as a socially conscious exercise in political correctness.

Writers David (“The Fugitive”)Twohy and Danielle Alexandra collaborated on what can only be called a prefabricated screenplay. “G.I. Jane” marches to the familiar beat that has characterized the formulaic military service picture since the 1920s. Movies such as “Courage Under Fire,” “Heartbreak Ridge,” and “Stripes.” have done what “G.I. Jane” tries to do. Moreover, they have done it better. Basically, the plots and the heroics in military pictures remain the same, only the sex of the hero has changed with “G.I. Jane.”

The Twohy-Alexandra script alternates between Congressional and Naval brainstorming sessions about Lt. O’Neil and the obstacles she confronts at the SEAL training base in Florida. A shrewd but slippery Texas Senator, Lillian DeHaven (Anne Bancroft), cuts a deal with the future Secretary of the Navy Theodore Hayes (Daniel Von Bergan). He’ll snag her vote of approval if the Navy opens its elite SEAL commando school to a woman. Secretary Hayes caves in to Senator DeHaven’s request, but squirms when she demands approval of the SEAL candidate.

DeHaven picks Lt. Jordan O’Neil (Demi Moore) for her physical agility and her keen mind. O’Neil is the kind of woman who makes men nervous. When we first meet her, she is monitoring a satellite transmission with a commando unit trying to escape from enemy country. She arouses the hostility of her male superior officer when she provides the best solution to the extraction problem. But Lt. O’Neil is not a person easily ignored. Neither Senator DeHaven nor Secretary Hayes expects her to finish the course. After all, Navy SEALs are the most demanding and merciless elite combat force in the world. Sixty percent of the recruits who enter the program wash out.
When the press snaps photos of O’Neil on SEAL maneuvers, a controversy erupts in both the Pentagon and Congress. Secretary Hayes and Senator DeHaven sought to keep the project under wraps, but the news wants to interview O’Neil. Suddenly, O’Neil finds herself caught in the middle of a JAG investigation. Trumped up charges of sexual misconduct are brought against her for fraternizing with a non enlisted women. When she asks the JAG officers if they are accusing her of lesbian activity, the guys balk. She wiggles out of that predicament when she learns that DeHaven betrayed her in the name of political expediency. This melodramatic about-face occurs just as her fellow shipmates have grudgingly accepted her only as an equal but also as their team leader.

Guys will relish the last half-hour of “G.I. Jane.” That’s when the bullets start to fly. During a training exercise in the Mediterranean Sea, the SEALs get to help out U.S. troops retrieving a fallen satellite in Libya. This part of the script is straight out of a “Star Trek” movie because the SEAL recruits are the only force close enough to respond to the situation. Nobody else can rescue these troops, so the Master Chief (Viggo Mortensen) takes his recruits into battle. Unfortunately, things go sour and the Master Chief catches a bullet. He sends O’Neil packing, but she refuses to leave him to his fate. Instead, O’Neil figures out the master chief’s escape plan and stages an ambush to wipe out his adversaries. Not since World War II Nazi movies have the enemy been so gullible and easy to kill. These Libyan soldiers present about as much a threat to the SEALs as the Iraqi soldiers did to Charlie Sheen in the “Hot Shots” movies.

Demi Moore knocks herself out as Navy Intelligence officer Lt. Jordan O’Neil. Even her character’s name has a masculine quality to it. When Demi isn’t trying to impress us with her brains, she displays her feminine brawn. The calisthenics that she performs in her tight undies defy gravity. The one-armed push-ups are enough to make you break into a sweat. All of this resembles the grunge side of last summer’s idiotic opus “Striptease,” except that frontal nudity is avoided. Moore’s performance, to her credit here, is both straight-forward and serious even when O’Neil plays toy soldier in the last reel.

As Master Chief John Urgayle, the lean and lupine Viggo (“Daylight”) Mortensen makes a worthwhile, flinty-eyed villain. When he isn’t hassling O’Neil, Urgayle is not above torturing his own wounded recruits to test their mettle. Clearly at odds with Lt. O’Neil throughout the movie, Urgayle refuses to let her status as a woman lessen the brutality of his methods. Mortensen gets the best line of dialogue when O’Neil confronts at his quarters. Before he slams the door in her face, he says: “When I want your opinion, I’ll give it to you.” The Twohy-Alexandria script allows the Master Chief one moment of redemption. He explains that women in combat do more harm to the men around them than anything positive they can contribute to the fighting. John Urgayle’s relationship with O’Neil changes before fadeout when he leads her team of SEAL recruits into the Libyan desert.

Veteran actress Anne Bancroft of “Point of No Return” shines as the crafty Texas senator whose willing to use as well as abuse Lt. O’Neil to save her own congressional bacon. This is Bancroft’s juiciest role in years, and she plays it to the hilt. Her best scene with O’Neil has Bancroft’s cagey Senator explaining why women in combat will remain a hot issue. According to DeHaven, lawmakers fear the political suicide that television images of dead women being shipped home in body bags would prompt.

As the SEAL training base commander, Scott Wilson gets to blow cigar smoke in Lt. O’Neil’s face and spar with her about the importance of women in the military on his base. Jason Beghe has a few choice scenes with Moore as the clean-cut Navy boyfriend she leaves behind. Although Beghe doesn’t want her to go, he finally accepts O’Neil’s decision and helps her out when DeHaven tries to defame her reputation.
Clearly, the Department of Defense wanted nothing to do with a Hollywood movie that depicts a Navy Master Chief drill instructor as an openly sadistic lout. He beats the pulp out of Lt. O’Neil, crashing her head repeatedly into a pole and smashing her nose. O’Neil manages to return the favor, staggering him with a kick between the legs. Obviously, the military wouldn’t condone this kind of behavior in the ranks, even if allegations as well as convictions about sexual impropriety in the services have made the headlines. Modest in its own right, “G.I. Jane” contains no nude scenes or sexual encounters between O’Neil and the other recruits. Or for that matter any rape scenes. “G.I. Jane” avoids this kind of rhetoric and mentions lesbianism in the military on in passing. Otherwise, the movie might have struck a too realistic stance, and such realism would have distracted from the popcorn plot.

Director Ridley Scott pulls some slick optical tricks to bolster “G. I. Jane,” but they don’t beef up the action. Jiggling his camera during the combat scenes may create disorientation in audience, but it doesn’t trigger a rush of adrenalin. This artsy gimmick doesn’t generate either tension or suspense. Anyway, you know that Demi Moore isn’t going to get a scratch on her because she’s smart enough to dodge the bullets that stupid men are firing at her. Simply, Scott doesn’t make “G.I. Jane” rock and roll. The grueling training sequences are okay, but the final combat scenes resemble Boy Scout antics, compared with even a marginal effort like “In The Army Now.” Ridley Scott has produced some memorable films that deploy women in gender stretching roles, such as “Alien” and “Thelma & Louise.” “G.I. Jane” boasts none of the art, hype, or viscera of those movies. In the commercially oriented market place, if the next movie doesn’t top the last, trouble lies ahead. Compared with last summer’s dignified masterpiece “Courage Under Fire,” “G.I. Jane” amounts to sheer hokum.

FILM REVIEW OF ''EXCESS BAGGAGE'' (1997)

Actress Alicia Silverstone’s latest starring vehicle “Excess Baggage” (** OUT OF ****) opens amid a frenzy of activity like an inspired screwball comedy. Midway through the movie director Marco Brambilla and his scribes flagrantly shift gears from a sparkling comedy to a tedious kidnapping drama about an unhappy heiress and a woebegone car thief. Fans of the “Clueless” starlet may find “Excess Baggage” a puzzling departure for Silverstone who wielded ultimate creative authority over both script and casting. Perhaps she is more to blame for the muddled quality of “Excess Baggage” than either Brambilla or the writers. Never as entertaining as “Clueless” but better than “Batman & Robin,” “Excess Baggage" arrives as something of a letdown after Silverstone’s long screen absence.

Cast as Emily T. Hope, the moody daughter of a man richer than Donald Trump, Silverstone constantly struggles to elicit her icy hearted, corporate father’s affections. Australian actor Jack (“‘Breaker’ Morant”) Thompson plays the father who has grown weary of his daughter’s outlandish schemes to attract his attention. When he sent her away to a boarding school, Emily torched the place. As “Excess Baggage” unfolds, she has convinced not only her father but also the FBI that kidnappers are holding her for a million dollar ransom. Lamely, Emily hopes that her rescue from her bogus kidnappers will rekindle her papa’s love. So she gags, tapes and cuffs herself before she jumps into the trunk (not a stunt you should try) of her BMW.

Just as it looks as if everything is going Emily’s way, a car thief spots her Beamer in a parking garage and steals it as she lies helpless in the trunk. No sooner does Vincent (Benicio Del Toro) wheel his latest trophy onto the street than a swarm of police cars descends on him. A tire-screeching chase ensues, and Vincent manages to shake his pursuers. He pulls into a nondescript warehouse that conceals his stolen vehicles. Vincent is an expert car thief who boosts expensive sports cars. When he puts the car on the rack, he notices that it wobbles. Imagine his shock when he finds a babe chick inside bound and gagged. Vincent slams the trunk! Since he cannot think of anything else, he calls his partner-in-crime Greg (Harry Connick, Jr), a car salesman. So far the story has a little in common with the Elizabeth Shue comedy “Adventures in Babysitting.”

Meanwhile, Emily’s suspicious father calls in his right hand man, Uncle Ray (Christopher Walken) to find his daughter. After Emily breaks out of the car, she calls pop, but hangs up when Vincent returns. Eventually, Vincent decides to leave her on foot far out in the forest. That’s when he discovers her identity and that his car warehouse stands in a pile of smoking ashes. Now, the guys who paid Vincent to steal the cars (Nicholas Turturro & Michael Bowen) want their $200-thousand dollars back. Spotting Emily, they pull guns on Vincent and take Emily hostage with a million dollar ransom demand. It seems that “Excess Baggage” is a series of kidnappings and abductions.

The inventive but offbeat script hangs together by the most improbable threads. Of course, that’s the nature of Hollywood movies. The more unlikely the circumstances are, the more colossal the dramatic outcome appears. Anyway, whoever thought to demand realism out of an Alicia Silverstone comedy? Suddenly, “Excess Baggage” wanders off on other subplots that distract from Vincent and Emily. Not only that but the story slows down and a pall hovers over the characters. Realism tries to intrude on an Alicia Silverstone movie. Oh, no, not another Silverstone turkey like “The Crush!”

Screwball comedy dictates that Vincent heists the same car that Emily uses to stash her body. A smoldering cigarette that she tosses into a rag bin later engulfs Vincent’s neat hideout in flames. Neither Vincent nor Emily appreciate their predicament. Just when Vincent rids himself of Emily, he needs her and she needs him. Later, when Ray captures Vincent and confiscates his money, Emily comes to his rescue. Less than amused, the gruff Ray explains to Emily that she has committed a serious crime. They need to use Vincent as the fall guy to take her place.

“Clueless” it ain’t. Director Marco Brambilla, whose only previous directing credit is Sly Stallone’s “Demolition Man,” whips these disparate elements together with such verve and style until Emily and Vincent team up. The action stalls out along with the humor and movie goes in search of a genre. Is this still a comedy? Or is it a social problem film? About the same time that the story loses its momentum, we learn what an insensitive brute her father truly is. Jack Thompson’s stuck-up dad feels absolutely no sympathy for his daughter and finds a business appointment infinitely preferable to her attentions.

Writer Max D. Adams and comedy veterans Dick Clement and Ian Frenais fumble in their efforts to maintain a consistent feeling and atmosphere in the story. After Emily and Vincent fall for each other, Alicia Silverstone’s character spends several scenes off-camera. We get to follow the misadventures of poor Vincent who gets kidnapped not only by Ray but his criminal cronies. The focus shifts from the burgeoning relationship between Emily and Vincent and settles on the mechanics of a crime thriller. There’s even a shoot-out at the end, and Alicia drives a forklift with the front end of a car on it through a wall. The filmmakers clearly lose interest in their characters when they let the leads take a back seat to the crazy twists and turns of the plot. But the ending isn’t so neat. Emily’s father couldn’t care two bits for his daughter and wings it off to a business conference.

If anybody holds this uneven caper together it’s star and producer Alicia Silverstone. Although she is looking a little fleshy around the curves, Silverstone’s china-doll eyes and her crooked smile are all the charisma this movie should have needed. The amazing thing is that Silverstone allows her character to be shuttled off-camera, something that rarely happened in “Clueless.” Successful starlets on the rise in Hollywood usually hog the camera lens, but Silverstone doesn’t mind letting her co-stars carry entire scenes without her. As a motherless daughter, Emily enlists our sympathy. She’s a poor misguided girl, but at the same time a rather smart cookie with a black belt in karate. Silverstone brings his gorgeous physical presence to bear in the role without shedding her clothes. In fact, you can count her wardrobe changes on one hand and have leftover fingers.

Silverstone’s scenes with co-star Benicio Del Toro are the best thing about “Excess Baggage.” The wiry Del Toro creates a character so much Emily’s opposite that you know they will hook up. A gifted actor in his own right, Benicio Del Toro got his start as a Bond villain in 1989’s “License to Kill” and played one of Robert De Niro’s victims in “The Fan.” Del Toro never gives the same performance twice. He speaks with a raspy voice here and varies the pulse of his performance from his co-star. The comedy and chemistry that develop between them is so dry that it radiates humor. In one scene, while she yammers away at him, he observes that he once stole a car with a puppy in the back seat that made less noise.

Christopher Walken is cast as Emily’s lethal Uncle Ray. Walken’s performance brims with uncertainty. Like he needed the director to remind him how villainous he was allowed to be. For a while, the writers act like they aren’t sure whose side Ray in on in the story.

If you like Alicia Silverstone, you’ll probably buy “Excess Baggage” not matter how flakey its premise, execution, and outcome is.

A Comparison of the war movies "Tobruk" and "Raid on Rommel"

Neither Arthur Hiller’s “Tobruk” (1967), starring Rock Hudson and George Peppard, nor Henry Hathaway’s “Raid on Rommel” (1971), with Richard Burton, qualify as classic Hollywood war movies. Nevertheless, “Tobruk” (*** OUT OF ****) and “Raid on Rommel” (*** OUT OF ****) rank in the upper middle third of all W.W.II tough-guy actioneers. Each film depicts a desperate Allied commando strike against the Nazi-held, Mediterranean port of Tobruk in 1942. These two war movies have an interesting but not unusual relationship. Producer Harry Tatelman dug the “Tobruk” action footage out of the Universal Studios film vault and integrated it into “Raid on Rommel.” The use of stock footage is not unheard of, and film studios have relied on it to cut costs. The difference with “Raid on Rommel” is it relies almost entirely on “Tobruk” for its action scenes, so much so that certain characters had to match the apparel of their “Tobruk” counterparts. Unlike the more commercially successful “Tobruk,” “Raid on Rommel” suffered the fate of its title character. Six months after its theatrical debut, “Raid on Rommel” showed up on television.

“Tobruk” and “Raid on Rommel” share more than the same action footage. The plots are practically identical. As the more ambitious of the two, “Tobruk” sets higher sights for itself. Sadly, the pretentious commentary about Judaism and violence detracts from the film’s fireball momentum. Indeed, Leo Gordon’s “Tobruk” script weaves messages skillfully into the dialogue, but the characters spend more time snarling than shooting. Hiller and Gordon pile on the subplots as if they were sandbags. Their strategy is shrewd but futile. The filmmakers struggle to avoid telling a predictable story by introducing something new about every 20 minutes. Ultimately, Hiller and Gordon fail to exploit the squabbles among the heroes because the storyline brings in some new danger that sidetracks the drama. “Tobruk” lacks a villain, too, a terrible flaw for any action movie. Action pictures are measured by the villain’s audacity. Challenging villains compel the hero to scale greater heights to triumph over evil. Rock Hudson impersonates an inconsistently written hero. One minute he rejects heroics, and then the next minute he’s leading the fight!

In “Tobruk,” Captain Kurt Bergman (George Peppard of “The A-Team”) heads an elite band of German Jews fighting for the British. They rescue Major Donald Craig (Rock Hudson) from a French prison and fly the uncooperative Craig from Algiers to Libya. Craig meets old school British Colonel Harker. According to Harker, his commandos have eight days to link up with British naval assault troops to blast Rommel’s fuel bunkers in Tobruk. Before the commandos can rendezvous with the navy, Harker’s men have to spike the harbor guns. “Your primary responsibility,” Colonel Harker (Nigel Green) briefs Craig in “Tobruk,” “is to route our convoy through 800 miles of the worse desert that the Sahara has to offer to the back door of Tobruk.” Disguised as German Africa Korps troops, Bergman’s German Jews escort Colonel Harker’s men, posing as British P.O.W.s, into the port city. Once he hears the plan, Craig grimaces: “It’s suicide.” “It’s orders,” Harker snaps. Moreover, Harker informs Craig that the major’s knowledge of the terrain is the key to the success of the mission.

Commandeered against his wishes to participate in this suicidal mission, Craig shrugs and espouses an anti-heroic posture, “My mother didn’t raise any heroes, colonel.” Violence, bloodshed, explosions, and treachery pave the road to “Tobruk” with considerable excitement. Colonel Harker doesn’t trust Bergman and his German Jews. Six years in Palestine gave Harker a lifelong suspicion of the Jews. The salty colonel represents the old school of the stiff upper lip. Harker irritates Major Craig when Craig charges that the mission is “impossible.” The Gordon script huddles these unhappy characters and tests their mettle in several tight spots. Unfortunately, these episodes serve more to pad out the action than propel it forward.

Rock Hudson’s Major Craig sloughs off his anti-hero attitude not long after he makes his pledge. He helps shoot down an Allied fighter that mistakes the German convoy with the real thing. Craig guides the British through a dangerous minefield, and commandeers a tank with a dummy grenade. As the sacrificial Jew, George Peppard’s sardonic Bergman wears the doomed look of Siegfried. If “Tobruk” were filmed today, Peppard’s smoking would epitomize his brazen attitude about death and risk taking. Sadly, Peppard’s death scene lacks luster; he dies far too easily. Such is not the case with Harker. After surrendering to the Germans, the colonel discovers the identity of a traitor and shoots him. Naturally, the German execute Harker on the spot. Harker’s death scene bursts with old school gallantry.

As a shoot’em up war epic, “Tobruk” more than makes the grade. Director Arthur Hiller is better known for his comedy movies, but he manages to keep the action moving despite the loquacious interludes about violence and Judaism. Several incidents that occur on the way to Tobruk are fodder. The problem here is that only Colonel Harker’s schedule keeps them moving, a flimsy excuse for motivation. The climatic battle on the cliff above the beach near the coastal gun emplacements is first-class war stuff. Veteran movie director Joseph Kane staged these sequences, and they crackle with excitement. Finally, “Tobruk” is more ambitious, but the film’s pretentiousness interferes. The producers assembled too much plot for “Tobruk” and lost sight of the basic drama.

The people who made “Raid on Rommel” contented themselves with less plot and created situations of greater dramatic value. The more satisfying of the two movies, “Raid on Rommel” avoids sermons about Judaism. Every good war movie should deal with the theme of war and its impact on morality, but not to the extent that “Tobruk” spews the familiar cliches. Far more scaled down, “Raid” succeeds because veteran director Henry Hathaway knew how to convert a routine commando mission into an exciting, old-fashioned yarn with heroes and villains.

“Raid on Rommel” opens at dawn in the deserts of Libya. English troops riddle a British half-track with a machine gun. Captain Alec Foster (Richard Burton) disguises himself as a corporal. Watching Richard Burton scowl and snarl is half of the fun of “Raid on Rommel.” Foster watches while the medical staff loads the pale corpses of two British soldiers into the half-track. Foster climbs in and drives off into the desert.

Meanwhile, a German plane lands at a Nazi camp in the desert, and Captain Heinz Schroeder (Karl-Otto Alberty of "Kelly's Heroes") receives orders to evacuate to Tobruk. An incredulous Major Tarkington (Clinton Greyn), the medical officer, complains that moving wounded prisoners into an active war zone violates the Geneva Convention. Schroeder dismisses the objection. The Germans now occupy the port city, and Schroeder assures him that Tobruk is safe. Afterward, Schroeder deals with the obstreperous mistress of an Italian general, Vivi (Danielle DeMetz). She hates Schroeder, the Nazis, and the English, too. She has few romantic notions about men since her Italian general abandoned her. Although she appears distinctly out of place, director Henry Hathaway manages to integrate Vivi into the action in a useful way unlike the expendable civilian spies in “Tobruk.”

The Germans spot Foster’s half-track veering erratically through the desert. Foster is passed out on the steering wheel when the Germans capture him. Schroeder’s men drag him out of the half-track, and dump him unceremoniously in the sand. Foster acts as if he were unconscious. Tarkington plays along with Foster’s sham. He diagnoses him as suffering from shock and exposure. Later, Foster is furious when he learns that the Fifth Commandos have been afflicted with dysentery and shipped off to a concentration camp. The Fifth Commandos were the guys who he was supposed to lead. The plan called from them to take over the convoy before it reached Tobruk.
Reluctantly, he enlists the aid of the few remaining commandos and Tarkington’s hospital unit to spike the coastal guns at Tobruk. On the road to Tobruk, Foster and Sgt.Maj. Allen MacKenzie (John Colicos) whip these green troops into shape. They force them to jog alongside the transports, rappel off the sides of the trucks, and teach them how to use machine guns, mortars, and a flamethrower. Richard Burton’s presence bolsters this standard issue war movie. He looks cool in a German uniform, and his escapade in the tank at the fuel bunker is memorable.

As Nazi Captain Heinz Schroeder, Karl-Otto Alberty qualifies as the villain. He rubs everybody the wrong way. He takes particular delight at infuriating Vivi. He thrives on war and observes that desert warfare is pure warfare. No women, children, or civilians clutter things up, just soldiers fighting soldiers. Major Tarkington shakes his head in revulsion. He shares none of Schroeder’s sentiments about the glory of war. Finally, Schroeder confirms his villainy when he shoots a Quaker corpsman in the back as the man is nursing Foster’s wounds. Foster empties his pistol into Schroeder. Later, Tarkington crosses swords with Foster on similar incidents. They argue about warfare and its brute nature. Ironically, “Raid on Rommel” is the better of the two films because the filmmakers tell a better story. Director Henry Hathaway of “True Grit” fame streamlined everything in “Raid on Rommel” so that it appeared a part of the plot. No self-respecting W.W. II cinemaphile should deprive himself of the pleasure of watching these two movies. Happily, “Tobruk” and “Raid” are enjoying a second lease on video life.

FILM REVIEW OF ''HARD RAIN'' (1998)

Scriptwriter Graham Yost had been so busy churning out tough-guy actioneers that it seemed only a matter of time before his creativity curdled. His previous efforts included a pair of trigger-happy John Woo shoot’em-ups “Hard Target” and “Broken Arrow” along with Jan De Bont’s careening epic “Speed.” Yost’s uncredited contribution to the sloppy Howie Long potboiler “Firestorm” changed nothing, but the prolific scribe appears really to have deep-sixed himself with the weather-beaten Morgan Freeman & Christian Slater thriller “Hard Rain” (** OUT OF ****), director Michael Salomon’s half-drenched drama about an armored car heist. The bad scenes outnumber the good ones, and the filmmakers let their characters wander around in a moral morass far too long before they expose their villainous or heroic characteristics.

Originally scheduled by Paramount Pictures for a 1997 release under the generic title “Flood,” “Hard Rain” capitalized on the success of disaster movies such as “Daylight,” with Sylvester Stallone, “Dante’s Peak,” with Pierce Brosnan, and the Tommy Lee Jones lava fest “Volcano.” When those disaster movies went belly up, the producers of “Hard Rain” treaded water. Moreover, since its earlier release date, “Hard Rain” has undergone more than a title change. Not only have the credits been juggled, but the script also apparently has been rewritten. Morgan Freeman (fresh from his box office success in “Kiss the Girls”) acquired top billing over co-star & co-producer Christian Slater.

Basically, “Hard Rain” is virtually a disaster itself. Yost’s uneven script appears the chief culprit. He swamps it with too many unlikely situations and some characters get way out of line. The concept of staging a heist during a devastating deluge must have seemed enticing when the producers pitched the premise. Indeed, the Yost script opens with an interesting predicament. Before “Hard Rain” lets up, you’ll feel tired of wading through yet another undistinguished semi-disaster/semi-crime caper flick. Altogether, “Hard Rain” showers its audiences with a wishy washy saga, suspicious characters, and a muddled sense of morality that rivals the Wesley Snipes & Woody Harrelson opus “Money Train.”

A rookie armored car guard, Tom (Christian Slater), has resigned from his construction job to work with his Uncle Charlie (Ed Asner of TV’s “Lou Grant”). As the film unfolds, Tom and Charlie are hauling about $3-million dollars of cold, hard cash from a Midwestern bank that flood waters are about submerge. As they try to leave town, they get stuck, and the flood rises over their ankles in the cab. Charlie radios the National Guard, and the two of them sit on the loot.

About that time, a band of thieves led by Jim (Morgan Freeman) show up. One of the villains, Kenny (Michael Goorjian) cuts loose, and they shoot it out. The scene is effective as well as eerie, with creepy spotlights blazing white-hot holes in the night skies. Goorjian gives a terrific performance as an idiot henchman who Jim has brought along because Jim promised his father he’d care of Kenny. Anyway, Charlie dies from a bullet wound, but Tom manages to escape. Resourceful guy that he is, Tom drags off the bags of the loot. The villains are always several steps behind the heroes and heroines in “Hard Rain” in hot (or as the case is ‘wet’) pursuit.

Meanwhile, the sheriff (Randy Quaid) has been evacuating the flooded town. It seems that he is serving out his last two weeks. Everybody believes the mayor sabotaged his re-election bid, because the sheriff had been in office far too long, twenty years too long. The sheriff tries to persuade an elderly couple, Henry (Richard Dysart) and Doreen (Betty White), to clear out of town before they drown. They’re determined to safeguard their store, so they are laying out bear traps when the sheriff intervenes. Dysart and White dredge up the only humor in the film as an incredibly grumpy couple. The only time you hear the “f--k” word in “Hard Rain” is as Henry reprimands Doreen for her outrageously bitchy behavior. TV’s “Golden Girl” White steals every scene as the suspicious, unrelenting spouse.

After he’s hidden the loot, Tom seeks refuge. He stumbles into a sandbagged church, and Karen (Minnie Driver) mistakes him for a looter. She decks him with a huge crucifix. Eventually, Tom regains consciousness and finds himself in jail. When he explains his predicament, the sheriff and his deputies leave him locked-up and go out to investigate. About that time, the guy manning the dam--Hank (Wayne Duvall)--has to open the floodgates and inundate the city with more water.

“Hard Rain” broadly resembles “Broken Arrow.” Substitute the stealth jet with an armored car along with John Travolta’s thief of nukes with Uncle Charlie’s scheme to steal the loot, and you have a clever but contrived variation. Add to the formula a heroine along the lines of the Samantha Mathis park ranger character, and you get Minnie Driver. She’s cast as an expert who restores stained glass church windows. She is so committed to preserving her stain-glass handiwork that she is willing to risk death by drowning.

“Hard Rain” bristles with a motley crew of characters. Nobody seems to represent who they really are. Yost exploits the natural disaster to bring out either the good or the bad in everybody. Randy Quaid’s sheriff exemplifies this as a veteran lawman that crosses over the line after two decades of wearing a badge. Morgan Freeman presents even a better example. He gives a deep, soulful performance, too, in a role he is clearly above in what he brings to what it lacks. Freeman’s Jim is an honorable thief. He neither triggered the accidental shoot-out that cost Uncle Charlie his life nor did he abandon the cretinous Kenny whose welfare he had been entrusted, but to say more would ruin the resolution.

Former photographer Michael Salomon keeps the pace trim with several vigorous, full-throttled, hell-bent action sequences. Nevertheless, he cannot rinse a script soaked with cliches. Initially, “Hard Rain” qualifies as a modern day version of Sergio Leone’s classic Spaghetti western “The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly.” Tom hides the loot in a cemetery before Karen clobbers him and lands him in jail. The sheriff grows greedy and decides to split the $3-million booty among his deputies while Jim pursues Tom. Moreover, Jim and Tom form an uneasy alliance against the lawmen when it’s clear the sheriff has decided that they must die.

The best parts of “Hard Rain” are the action scenes. They rock. Literally, when guns are fired, the cameras shudder to heighten the violence. The gunshots (in a good sound system) burst in your ears like mortar shells. The jet-ski scene in the high school is fun. Obviously, the filmmakers are playing on the secret desire some moviegoers may harbor about a perverse wish to trash the halls of their high school. The sight of power boats crashing through stained glass windows and shattering them to hell and gone is rather exciting, too.

Sadly, the unpredictable characters undermine “Hard Rain.” When the characters decide which side of the law to support, you feel little sense of relief. The villains seem too sympathetic to truly hate. The entirely empathetic reasons for their actions make them sympathetic. “Hard Rain” exemplifies one of those rare movie misfires where the characters stimulate more interests than the plot.
If anybody in “Hard Rain” deserves kudos, production designer J. Michael Riva certainly does. Riva and his associates used a large, Palmdale, California, aircraft hanger where B-1 bombers were assembled to photograph the action. “Hard Rain” may whet your appetite. This slickly packaged, class-oriented disaster drifts too far from formula to qualify as an exemplary Christian Slater movie like “True Romance,” “Broken Arrow,” or “Kuffs.”