Who'll Stop The Rain

Starring:Nick Nolte, Tuesday Weld, Michael Moriarty, Anthony Zerbe, Richard Masur, Ray Sharkey, Gail Strickland, Charles Haid, David Opatoshu, JoaquÃn MartÃnez, James Cranna, Timothy Blake, Shelby Balik, Jean Howell, JosÃ© Carlos Ruiz, John Durren, Bobby Kosser, Wings Hauser, Jonathan Banks, Michael Bair
Director: Karel Reisz
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Product Type: DVD

Amazon.com essential video

Following the success of The Deep, in which he costarred with Jacqueline Bisset's wet T-shirt, Nick Nolte gummed up the star-maker machinery by recasting himself from sex symbol to commanding character actor with this unrelentingly bleak, fatalistic post-Vietnam thriller based on Robert Stone's book Dog Soldiers. Nolte gives a ferocious performance as Ray Hicks, a Nietzche-reading merchant marine who reluctantly agrees to carry into the United States two keys of heroin for his friend, John Converse (a superb Michael Moriarty), a disillusioned journalist. Ray and John are "way out of their league," as a corrupt narcotics agent (Anthony Zerbe) sends two goons (the late, great Ray Sharkey, and Richard Masur, cast against type as a scuzzy psychopath) to hijack the heroin. Ray is forced to go on the run with John's anguished, pill-popping wife (Tuesday Weld in one of her best performances). A buried treasure, this is the kind of intense and uncompromising film that Nolte appeared in later in his notoriously roller-coaster career. --Donald Liebenson

Description

Two-time Oscar(r) nominee* Nick Nolte is like a champion achieving cinematic immortality [in this] knockout adventure destined to become a classic (Washington Post). Co-staring Tuesday Weld (Falling Down) and Michael Moriarty (TV's Law & Order ), this 'savage, paranoid thriller (Newsweek) is acted brilliantly and cast perfectly [and] one of the year's best (The New York Times)! Fresh from the bloody battlefields of Vietnam, Ray Hicks (Nolte) does hisfriend Converse a favor, smuggling a stash of heroin back to the States. But when Ray goes to deliver the drugs, he and Converse's wife, Marge (Weld), are ambushed and barely escape with their lives!Suddenly on the run from two ruthless thugs and a murderous cop, the unlikely pair must find a way to get along and survive a perilous double-cross in this gripping nightmare adventure (New West) that quickly becomes a harrowing journey into hell (Newsweek). *1997: Actor, Affliction; 1991: Actor, The Prince of Tides

Customer Reviews:

The best and the brightest.......2007-03-24

This movie is, without a doubt, the best movie about Viet Nam ever made. Each character we meet has something to say about how we got there, how we avoided facing the truth, and how we denied, not only, responsibility for what we did, we very nearly denied it even happened.

This is worth seeing every few years -- there is always something new to see in it.

A Forgotten Masterpiece.......2006-11-10

This is one of the finest, most honest, and most courageous films to come out of the Vietnam Era. Based on Robert Stone's best-selling novel DOG SOLDIERS, it's a war story, a crime story, an action thriller, and a romance. Distinguished by superb cinematic storytelling and incisive vision, it features performances from Nick Nolte, Tuesday Weld, and Michael Moriarty that are among the best in each of their careers.

Warning Spoiler - READ ONLY at your discretion..........2005-07-03

I don't know - do we need a spoiler warning for a film from the 70's at this point? Anyway, this film was a footnote caught somewhere between Apocalypse Now and Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, etc.. But I liked it in the same way as Billy Jack in that it was an unpretentious story driven off pure character and story. No wiz bang special effects (except maybe the finale) here just people caught up in circumstance. But the ending sticks with me to this day. Nolte double-times it off into the distance, at port arms, improbably singing a Jody call (a real old school non-PC one at that). You can't predict nor control and perhaps even understand what life and fate throws at you but to be true to your own nature in spite of it is about as best as anyone can expect.

Tough Vietnam Era Flick.......2005-02-19

To the credit of director Karel Reisz, "Who'll Stop The Rain" is a tough uncompromising film that takes an honest look at it's subject matter and doesn't back off. The story concerns a journalist in Vietnam, John Coverse,(Michael Moriarty) who asks his merchant marine buddy, Ray Hicks,(Nick Nolte) to smuggle some heroin back to the States. Hicks does so reluctantly only because Converse is his friend. Once back in the States, Hicks is confronted with a narcotics agent(Anthony Zerbe) and his hired thugs(Ray Sharkey and Richard Masur) trying to hijack the drugs by terrorizing Coverse's wife, Marge(Tuesday Weld). It is now Hicks' sworn duty to protect Marge and unload the stash. The performances in this film by all the principals are uniformly excellent. Though the film is tough going at times it only underlines a strong anti-drug message. A previous reviewer took issue with the film's ending. Not to give anything away, I disagree with that assessment though I've never read the film's source material, Robert Stone's "Dog Soldiers". "Who'll Stop The Rain" is another example of the adventurous filmmaking that was a product of the seventies.

Matthias in something cool. .......2004-09-06

Great Movie though it blew a perfect ending with the last five minutes.

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