FILM
REVIEW – FLOOD
A terribly British take on the standard disaster movie plot, focusing on the great flood of London. An impressive cast, Robert Carlisle and Tom Courtney as a father and son team of experts, and David Suchet as a government minister, struggle to come to terms with the impending flood when Britain is battered by extreme weather conditions. A Scottish town is wiped out in the opening scene, as a woman drowns in her own house – the raging storm responsible now seems to head out to sea, but Courtney warns that it will be deflected back when it nears the Netherlands, and that it will hit London.
Carlisle maintains the Thames Flood barrier, but realizes that it will not stop a tidal surge of the magnitude expected. Despite a valiant attempt to evacuate the city, thousands are left behind as the waters hit. There are lots of CGI shots of waters swirling round the monuments and tourist trap locations. Carlyle and his girlfriend are swept off the flood barrier and spend most of the film in the water without showing the slightest sign of hypothermia.
There are some touching scenes of people trying to get out of a flooded underground station, but the film has a dull by the numbers stiff upper lip level of politeness and self sacrifice to it. Discovering that the flood barrow which failed to stop the flood, could actually be used to lower the waters if it is opened up again, Courtney and the now rescued Carlisle return to the barrier (now less under-water than it was when Carlyle fell off it) and try to switch it all off. Courtney does the decent thing and sacrifices him to save us all – Hooray for the Brits.
For a feature film, it runs very slow and along the patterns of an episode of the TV series Spooks, (who did an episode about terrorists attacking the barrier), with a very predictable supply of expendable stock characters. Good special effects – shame about the plot and lack of credibility. If this is really how we would handle a flood London is truly doomed.
Arthur Chappell
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