Despite his personal issues I can’t lie I am a fan of his work. We don’t see as much of him in front of the camera these days, but when we do I am interested. His latest Force of Nature has him starring alongside Emile Hirsch, Stephanie Cayo, Kate Bosworth and David Zayas but does it bring the hopeful action or will it drown before making it to the life raft?

 

Force of Nature follows a disgraced cop Cardillo who races to evacuate an apartment building, he comes across Dr. Troy and her retired detective father, Ray. When a murderous gang of thieves arrives to rob a wealthy tenant, they must join forces to battle the criminals and escape with their lives before the entire city is deep underwater.

 

This is one of those movies that isn’t breaking down any barriers in the action genre but firmly cements itself in the usual formula people have become familiar with. Hirsch and Cayo are the real focus here as we get things set up. The idea kind of reminded me of films like Hard Rain that uses the act of nature, this time being a hurricane, as its own character in hopes to elevate it. This works fine enough, but doesn’t really bring anything to the table other than the reason they are supposed to be evacuating.

 

This could have been set up in anyway which makes this element less important than it probably should have been. Nonetheless the table is set and of course the bad guys arrive with no care of their own safety to do their thing. I was worried Gibson was going to end up in some small cameo, but he is a big player and does a good job with what he has. It’s nothing overly deep and the kind of role he could do in his sleep but helps to make up for the shortcomings in the plot. There is some decent action, but all of it is pretty generic using mostly gun play and a couple of fist fights. There are too many directions and twists they attempted to add in my opinion that watered down the overall story when they could have streamlined it a bit to better effect.

 

In the end this was an old school action flick that could have easily been made in the 90s and worked for me to that regard. Is it anything that’s going to stand out? No, but it accomplished what it meant to so decide for yourself when it hits digital, On Demand, Blu-ray and DVD from Lionsgate Home Entertainment.