Who'll stop the Rain (1979)

Plot: A merchant seaman helps an old army friend smuggle Heroin into the USA. But the drug deal goes bad, and he and his friend's wife end-up running for their lives.

Starring:  Tuesday Weld, Nick Nolte, Michael Moriarity

Athough a critical favorite when released,  Who'll stopped the Rain has been completely forgotten.  And I can see why.  Skillfully directed, with good performances by Tuesday Weld, Nick Nolte, and Michael Moriarity,  it should be a lot more engaging and enjoyable than it it. The problem (as always) is the script and plot.

The movie gives us a standard story we've seen a million times.  A little band of not-so-bad crooks are being chased by a bigger band of very-bad crooks.  The big crooks want what the little crooks have, in this case 2 Kilo's of Heroin. Along the way, we get torture scenes, chase scenes, double crosses, and a shootout.  And because its the 70s, we get a downbeat ending with a dead leading man.  The dialogue is servicable.

It has its good points,  For one, a memorable scene where Nolte first meets Weld, discovers he's being followed and beats up the bad guys.  Another? there's a final shootout that's both unbelievable and exciting.  And 1970s California is a welcome sight. But the characters are all surface, there's no reason to root for them, and the villains are surprising flat.  Its way too long at 126 minutes 

Summary: An average Crook-chase movie with some good acting and a few good scenes.  

Postscript - The Stanley Kauffmann Review.

Kauffmann includes this in his book "Before My Eyes" and in his concise, well-written way, writes a puzzling review full of hate for the movie, the actors, and co-screenwriter Robert Stone.  After spending one page discussing Director Karel Reisz, and calling him English (!), he spends 1/2 page on the movie.  Kauffmann starts by trashing the source novel: National Book Award winner "Dog Soldiers", calling it vacuous, tedious, and a 2nd rate Hemingway knockoff.  Kauffmann then declares the movie characters are "vermin" & attacks the movie for falsely trying to portray them as "decent".  Other films about "Sewer People" - thunders Stanley - have the morals to "close the manhole cover".  He closes with darts at the 3 actors.  Nolte is compared to Buster Crabbe, Moriarity is labeled arrogant and condesending, and Weld is dismissed as a one-note "anguished Kewpie-doll". 

One wonders where all this moralism comes from.  After all, Kauffmann loved Bonnie and Clyde, Charlie Varrick, The Getaway, and Chinatown.  It confirms how "unreliable" Kauffmann is as a film reviewer.  What he likes today, he'll dislike tommorrow.  Why? Not clear. Motivations not shown on the page.