By JASON R WALLACH
Starring Casper Van Dien, Nicky Whelan, Louis Mandylor
Written by Chad Law & Josh Ridgway
Directed by Brandon Slagle
Saban Films
If you remember back to the 90s and the early 2000’s you may recall a flood of direct-to-video releases at your local Blockbuster or Hollywood Video. These releases were a dime-a-dozen sporting cheesy digital effects, mediocre acting, convoluted scripting, and featured an actor, or actress, who used to be Hollywood at one point. Well, THE FLOOD is one such film reminding us that the direct-to-video market is alive and well. If you enjoy this sub-category of nature run amok during a natural disaster thriller action/suspense-style fare, then this film is quite likely your cup of tea.
The premise is that Louisiana is being evacuated due to a life-threatening hurricane causing massive flooding. During the evacuation, a bus containing five hardened criminals is re-routed from its destination and brought to a local Sheriff’s station where the inmates are to be held until the flooding stops. During all this, there is a small group of criminals waiting to disrupt said transfer of criminals to break one of them out. Now if that’s not enough to keep you riveted, the jail becomes inhabited by large PS2-style CGI man-eating alligators. Soon the group of jail-breakers clashes with the group of inmates as well as the officers guarding them; and just a reminder that all of this takes place in a jail, during a massive storm with killer alligators looking for lunch. It all plays out and crescendos with all the daytime television gusto its meager budget can muster.
The Sheriff, Jo Newman, is one of those “beautiful yet tough as nails” characters (Nicky Whelan) who was inspired by her daddy to become a policewoman. I’d also like to add that throughout the film, despite the fighting, sweating, and swimming, her makeup holds up better than her performance. There is chemistry between the Sherriff and the quiet and soulful prisoner, Russell Cody (Van Dien) and I use the term “chemistry” with a fair amount of suppressed snickering… especially since Russell is an alleged cop killer. I enjoyed seeing Casper Van Dien back on the screen as I hadn’t seen him in anything since Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow.
The film has a lot going on in it… too much actually, and the focus shifts back and forth between plot devices rather than being a cohesive overall piece. The pacing of the film is very much stop-and-go as there are just too many cat-and-mouse shenanigans involved between the people and the alligators, when the story goes out of its own way to remember that they’re there. So overall if you have nothing better to do and want to down some popcorn. . .THE FLOOD is for you!
