Film / Force of Nature

It's Die Hard in a Puerto Rican apartment complex! In the rain!

Force of Nature is a 2020 action movie directed by Michael Polish and starring Emile Hirsch, Kate Bosworth, Mel Gibson, Stephanie Cayo and David Zayas. A mixture of disaster movies and the "Die Hard" on an X Sub-Genre of action thrillers, the movie is about an art heist in an apartment complex in San Juan, Puerto Rico, while a category-5 hurricane is ravaging through the island.

Although the robbers (led by a local criminal known simply as "John the Baptist", played by Zayas) are well-prepared for the raid, they run into unexpected obstacles when it turns out that a pair of beat cops (played by Hirsch and Cayo) are also present in the premises, in the middle of evacuating some residents who stayed behind. Oh yeah, and there is also a foul-mouthed ex-cop with his gun, Ray, who refuses to give in without a fight.

Compare with Hard Rain and The Hurricane Heist, two "Die Hard" on an X action flicks that also revolve around robberies under the cover of a storm.

Should not be confused with romcom Forces of Nature

In Force of Nature, when it rains, it pours, resulting in the following tropes:

• Action Survivor: Most of the protagonists fall into this category - even Cardillo and Jess, the two cops who are forced to hide and outsmart the heist gang instead of taking them head-on. Justified, as they are simple patrol officers who are outnumbered and outgunned by the heist crew.
• After Action Patch Up: Troy (Ray's daughter, who happens to be a doctor) treats Cardillo's gunshot wound after almost getting beaten down by a Mook (with Cardillo providing the obligatory Bandage Wince once done with the treatment). Things quickly get romantic between the two, despite the fact that the gunshot wound was caused by Troy herself due to accidentally shooting Cardillo in the leg. Ouch.
• Ambiguous Syntax: Griffin repeatedly asks for the "bowl of food" for his "cat", but it takes the others a while to realize he means "giant washtub full of meat" for his cougar.
• Anti-Hero: Cardillo is definitely this, not caring the slightest about his desk job, and preferring to just duck out his shift in a police van instead of going out to the storm to evacuate people, as ordered. Ray is also this in spades, constantly arguing with Troy, belittling Jess for her enthusiasm for the job, and generally not giving a crap about anyone. Both of them get closer to the Ideal Hero though, as the movie progresses.
• Armor Is Useless: Ray is the only one in the whole movie to wear a bulletproof vest. He's then shot repeatedly in body parts not protected by the vest, a fact even he lampshades as he dies.
• Artistic License – Law: The last line of the film. If the paintings which have been "in [Paul's] family since the war" were in fact stolen by the Nazis, Griffin will definitely have trouble selling the painting, or even keeping it, without some serious legal complications.
• A-Team Firing: Justified by most of the firefights take place in dark interiors or heavy rain (both impairing visibility), although there are still several instances (notably the shootout between Troy and the guard at the entrance) where the proximity and position make the number of misses strain credibility.
• Ate His Gun: Cardillo attempts this in his first scene, contemplating suicide for accidentally shooting his cop girlfriend back in New York City.
• Awesome, but Impractical: The heisters pack high-calibre assault rifles, many of them sporting high-magnification optics. They are definitely the type of weapons you would definitely not pick for a job that involves raiding a building with narrow corridors and other tight spaces, where they seriously hinder movement. Pistols, sub-machineguns and other compact weapons would have been a much more useful for the job at hand.
• Bad Boss: John The Baptist, the leader of the heisters has no problem killing his accomplices if he considers them a liability. It's not difficult to get that status in his books, either.
• Bait-and-Switch Gunshot: While Cardillo is getting beaten down in the building's patio in the rainstorm, Ray frantically tries finding a good position from where he can shoot his attacker before the Mook kills him. Cue a gunshot sound, and the Mook falls dead. However, it turns out it was not Ray, but actually Troy who killed the goon - though she also wounded Cardillo in the process.
• Bat Deduction: Griffin pulls this on Paul based solely on his German accent, because of course All Germans Are Nazis. Paul later claims that his father was the actual Nazi.
• Battle Couple: Cardillo and Troy slowly becoming this during the course of the movie, as they start bonding after surviving a fight with some Mooks.
• Battle in the Rain: Most of the action scenes quality for this, given that he story takes place during the downpour of a hurricane.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Jess is definitely roughed up both by the storm and the Mooks during the course of the movie. She keeps blooming despite all of that, with no visible injuries.
• Berserk Button: When he arrives to Ray's apartment, Cardillo just doesn't care about anything. However, once Ray recognizes him and starts scorning him for the reasons he ended up in Puerto Rico (accidentally killing his girlfriend, who was also an NYPD detective), his indifference turns into open hostility, and says goodbye to him with a Precision F-Strike. Troy needs all her negotiating skills to convince him to take Ray to the hospital after that.
• Bottomless Magazines: Generally averted.
  • Cardillo, Jess and Ray all make sure not to waste ammunition, as they only have a limited amount of spare magazines for their handguns.
  • Also averted (mostly) with John's gang, even though they shoot bullets with more enthusiasm, given the higher capacity magazines of their assault rifles.
• Building of Adventure: The apartment complex is definitely this, containing a dangerous scaffolding, a basement flooded with water, the apartment of an ex-DEA agent full of weapons, the art stash of a Nazi war criminal, and Janet.
• Blinded by the Light: Ray employs this trick when a Mook gets the drop on him and Jess in a darkened room.
• Buddy Cop Show: The movie has traces of this, applying both to the Cardillo-Jess and Ray-Jess dynamic. Being an optimistic and enthusiastic rookie, Jess definitely gets on the nerves of both men, but they both get to like and respect her over time.
• Chekhov's Gun: Or rather animal in this case. Griffin trained his cougar, Janet, to attack uniformed cops on sight. Cardillo remembers this, and promptly lures John to the predator once he takes his police uniform to escape undetected.
• Comfort the Dying: Ray and Troy reconcile while the former is dying.
• Combat Medic: Troy turns out to be this, as not only she has to treat Cardillo and keep Griffin alive, but also has to shoot some Mooks as well in the process.
• Contrived Coincidence: John learns about the existence of the paintings only because the old lady he planned to rob that day sold the ring he was going to steal, so they had to go to her safety deposit box, and he recognized the painting she had just purchased all rolled up in there. All of this on the day a hurricane is about to hit the city.
• Conveniently Timed Attack from Behind: Troy saves Cardillo in the last second by shooting the Mook strangling him.
• Cop Hater: Griffin doesn't like cops, so much so that he trained his "pet" cougar, Janet, to attack uniformed officers on sight. Turns out the reason of this is that he was a victim of racial profiling far too often, the last one ending with him getting beaten unconscious by overzealous cops. He's on good terms with Cardillo and Jess by the end of the movie, though.
• Covers Always Lie: Although Mel Gibson is heavily emphasized on the cover art, he actually has less than 15 minutes of screen time (and spends even most of that rambling in a chair). He also gets killed off around two-thirds of the movie's runtime. At the same time, David Zayas and Stephanie Cayo (playing key characters with more screentime than Gibson) do not even have their names listed on the original cover.
• Crazy-Prepared: The (unseen) ex-DEA agent who amassed a huge arsenal in his apartment.
• Crooks Are Better Armed: While Cardillo and Jess only have their service pistols, John's crew raid the apartment complex with customized high-calibre assault rifles.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Remembering that Griffin trained his cougar to attack cops on sight, Cardillo manipulates John to go to Griffin's apartment after he takes his uniform to escape. This ends exactly as expected.
• Darkened Building Shootout: All action scenes quality for this once the building loses power because of the storm.
• Damsel in Distress: Poor Jess is the designated character for this trope. She's ambushed no less than three times during the story, and is finally captured and handcuffed to a chair. After Cardillo surrenders to John to save her, she gets uncuffed, but still spends the rest of the movie disarmed and at gunpoint.
• Deadpan Snarker: Both Cardillo and Ray hold a black belt in this trope. Neither Troy nor Jess are impressed by this.
• Determined Doctor: Troy starts off with this trope, intent on taking his father Roy to the hospital due to his dialisis. She also sets out to retrieve the medical supplies from another doctor's apartment as she insists on treating Griffin's leg wound caused by Janet.
• Didn't Think This Through: John The Baptist has this at the end of the film to end the film, as he is tricked into opening a heavily locked door without considering that priceless art doesn't need the kind of locks made to prevent it getting out of a room, as Janet's room does.
• Dressing as the Enemy: Seeing the cops' van outside, John gets the keys from Cardillo, then has Cardillo take off his uniform and give it to him, so that he can dress up as a cop and flee undetected. This ends pretty bad for him, as Cardillo then promptly tricks him to go to Griffin's apartment where Janet is locked away.
• Eager Rookie: Jess is significantly more committed to the job that the apathetic Cardillo and works hard to make an impression so that she can transfer to a "more exciting" department. Once she learns that Ray worked at a notorious precinct of San Juan, she tries convincing him to put in a good word for her there.
• Fair Cop: Cardillo and Jess fill the male and female quota of this trope, respectively.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Cardillo and Jess become this by the end of the movie.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: The size of Janet's food bowl and the locks on the door are immediately followed by the reveal that Janet is a big cat.
• Fluffy the Terrible: If you expect someone called "John the Baptist" to be a saintly kind of guy, you're in for a surprise. He's more the type to rough up a young woman handcuffed to a chair, kill unarmed civilians without remorse, and execute his own accomplices without hesitation once they outlived their usefulness.
• Friendly Fire: Surprisingly many characters get on this list.
  • Both Jess and Troy are guilty of accidental friendly fire, hitting Ray and Cardillo respectively.
  • The reason Cardillo retreats to Puerto Rico is that he accidentally shot and killed his girlfriend, who happened to be a fellow NYPD detective.
  • John also does this, although deliberately.
• Genre Savvy: Zig-zagged with John the Baptist. When negotiating over the radio with John, Cardillo tells him he's willing to give the art up if he releases Jess. John quickly calls the offer a cliché, and orders Cardillo to his location immediately. However, he later buys Cardillo's claim that the art stash contains only facsimiles (and thus is being a diversion) without any suspicion.
• Gory Discretion Shot: Most of the gun deaths in the film, as they clearly spent the SFX budget on rain rather than gore. For example:
  • The old lady at the start isn't even in frame when John the Baptist shoots her.
  • The blood splatter over the painting when Paul is shot.
  • The big cat attack at the climax is shot from outside the apartment, with audible gunshots and screams doing most of the heavy lifting.
  • Averted when Ray is shot, one of the few times we clearly see bullets connect with flesh.
• Hallway Fight: Given that the majority of the action takes place in an apartment complex, it's not surprising that several fights occur in hallways.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Once John takes Cardillo's uniform, Cardillo plays this with John, claiming that Paul's art stash is a diversion of facsimiles only, and that the real paintings are hidden in other apartments in plain sight. John, considering himself an art criminal mastermind, buys Cardillo's claim without reservations, and promptly leads him and Jess at gunpoint to the supposed "real" stash. It turns out to be Griffin's apartment where John quickly notices the locked door of Janet...
• Hospital Epilogue: Cardillo and Jess visit Griffin and Troy in a hospital at the very end. Cardillo also leaves a little surprise behind for Griffin. One of the valuable paintings that John and his crew wanted to steal.
• Hostile Weather: Downplayed, as the hurricane represents direct danger only once to the characters (specifically to Troy, who almost falls to her death from the scaffolding when a stronger wind hits her). The hurricane mostly provides just the Closed Circle for trapping the cops and the handful of civilians who did not evacuate from the apartment complex.
• Idiot Ball: Let's just say that a lot of trouble (and deaths) could have been avoided if the characters fought with more pragmatism, or proved to be more Genre Savvy.
  • Griffin, the one character who knows what's behind the door, really should have been more careful when opening it. Or tried to explain to the others that "Janet" is not just an unusually large house cat.
  • Let's face it, one of the reasons the protagonists survive the heist (despite getting overpowered many times) is that the Mooks frequently decide to use their fists instead of picking up the guns they've lost during the fight to finish the job.
  • Once John has the cops disarmed and held at gunpoint, for some reason, he kills Paul (the one who poses the least danger of fighting back), but doesn't kill the cops.
  • John unquestioningly accepts Cardillo's theory that the paintings in Ray's apartment are fakes, and that the real ones are Hidden in Plain Sight elsewhere, despite this making very little sense and being supported no evidence at all.
• How We Got Here: The movie opens with an Action Prologue (featuring Cardillo getting beaten down by a Mook), set roughly at the middle of the story. Once Ray takes aim and pulls the trigger, the screen cuts to black, and the story starts from the beginning.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Mostly averted, although the final guard at the entrance is notable for missing multiple clear shots at Troy from maybe 15 feet away despite using a semiautomatic.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Ray is an old, grumpy, sexist cop who (seemingly) doesn't think much of Troy and Jess, throwing insults rapidly at both of them. That said, the offensive remarks to Jess stop immediately once they need to rely on each other, and reconciles with Troy before dying.
• Kick the Dog: John kills several civilians during the course of the movie, and he also doesn't have any problem killing off his accomplices once they served their purpose.
• Large Ham: Let's just say that Mel Gibson steals every scene he's in.
• Leave No Survivors: Seems to be John's MO, who kills anyone without remorse if he thinks they can hold him back or pose a risk. Except the main characters, of course.
• The Load: Paul and Griffin are pretty much this. Paul only serves as the Living MacGuffin of the movie, owning the paintings the robbers are after, but not doing anything worthwhile other than keeping up with Cardillo and putting some pressure on Griffin's wounded leg. Griffin, on the other hand, is just one of the plot devices that separates Cardillo and Troy from Ray and Jess (the former duo decides to get medical supplies to treat his leg wound), and mostly exists to provide the Chekhov's Gun that is used to take out John.
• Mental Health Recovery Arc: Sums up Cardillo's character development, who drops his suicidal thoughts by the end of the movie and asks Troy out for a date.
• Mercy Kill: Played with. When Cardillo wounds one of John's henchmen, John swiftly puts the guy out of his misery. However, John is already established as someone who has no problems killing his own men for relatively petty reasons, so this is also a case of just more Bad Boss behaviour.
• Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot: How Cardillo and Jess ends up in the middle of the heist. Originally, the duo responded only to a supermarket's 9-1-1 call where Griffin got into a fight with a customer for buying most of the meat for himself (or technically, for Janet). They end up at the apartment complex where Griffin lives (and targeted by the art thieves) only because Griffin - trying to avoid arrest and feed Janet - tells them that a retired cop also lives there, and may need evacuation.
• More Dakka: Strangely subverted. Ray and Jess raid an ex-DEA agent's apartment and start arming themselves up with sub-machineguns, shotguns and assault rifles. However, once they kit up, they promptly get taken down by John and one of his goons.
• Mr. Exposition: Technically, Ray's main purpose in the story is to reveal the intentions of the art heist crew, and shed light on Cardillo's background. The info is dumped by Mel Gibson in the way you'd expect.
• Multiple Gunshot Death: In a darkly ironic fashion, Ray dies from this, despite the fact that he's the only character to wear a bulletproof vest.
• Nice Girl: Jess, who is enthusiastic about her evacuation assignment, and tries to prove her worth as a sympathetic, by-the-book cop. She gets more than what she bargained for when the Mooks raid the apartment complex.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Cardillo almost gets beaten to death by a Mook. Troy saves him just in time by shooting the bad guy with a Conveniently Timed Attack from Behind.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Basically how Cardillo and Jess end up in trouble in the first place. Cardillo wanted to duck out the shift in their police van, while Jess insisted to carry out their orders, and evacuate the buildings in their precinct.
  • Also applies to Griffin, who eventually saves the duo by letting them in his apartment. He's attacked by Janet soon after, as he gets distracted by the cops while trying to feed her.
• No Hugging, No Kissing: Although Cardillo and Troy start developing an interest toward each other midway through the movie, they never actually get intimate - the two of them only agree to go out on a date in the final scene of the movie.
• Obscured Special Effects: We never see Janet over almost the entire film. We're not even told what kind of large cat she is. At The Reveal, it's a very short, poorly lit scene which immediately does a Fade to Black.
• Old Cop, Young Cop: Ray is a cynical, grumpy, old ex-cop, while Jess is a naive, enthusiastic rookie. Needless to say, they get off with a shaky start, but get to like and respect each other through the course of the movie. Or until Ray's death, that is.
• Only a Flesh Wound: Injuries in this film are only as bad as they are needed to be at the moment for the puropses of plot.
  • Griffin's leg injuries due to Janet are only as bad as they need be to the plot. He spends almost the entire movie immobilized and "bleeding out" with Paul putting pressure on his leg, but then is okay enough to hobble downstairs and immerse his leg in salt water to escape.
  • Carillo gets shot in the leg and stitched up, and does limp a little from time to time but this comes and goes.
• Put Down Your Gun and Step Away: One of the Mooks plays this on Cardillo, who complies. Since the goon is shockingly sloppy, holding his gun with one hand, letting Cardillo get very close, and being easily distracted by taunting, some Good Old Fisticuffs ensue.
• The Radio Dies First: Once the hurricane reaches San Juan, it knocks out the cops' radios, conveniently trapping them in the apartment complex without any means of calling for backup. The apartments they visit also have no landline phones installed, as they mention.
• Rewatch Bonus: When Jess is looking for Ray's bathroom to get his medication, Ray tells her to take the door on the right, as the one on the left contains his wife's art studio. It actually contains Paul's inherited art, the paintings the robbers are after.
• Safecracking: One of the goons does this throughout the majority of the movie. Then it turns out the safe was a ruse, and is empty.
• Shooting Gallery: According to Troy, Ray did this at home in a very strange way: he bought frozen turkeys every Thanksgiving, and then shot them up for target practice. The young Troy was also excited for this because she wanted to be a doctor and could practice removing the bullets and stitching up the turkeys afterwards.
• Steel Eardrums: As typical of most action flicks, none of the characters suffer from hearing loss, despite all the action taking place in narrow hallways and apartment rooms, and all characters using unsilenced weapons.
• Take Our Word for It: The hurricane. Allegedly Category 5, but all we see is not-even-really-downpouring rain and one window blown out at a plot-convenient time. The apartment building experiences none of the 160mph winds mentioned in the introductory exposition.
• Trailers Always Lie: Similarly to the cover art, the official trailer makes Mel Gibson as Ray appear to be a much larger role than in the film itself. The plot focuses more on Emile Hirsch's and Kate Bosworth's characters.
• Villain by Default: John and his Mooks get zero character depth, but they still clearly come across as bad guys, given that they have no problem killing unarmed civilians and hunting down cops.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: The Mook guarding the entrance (the one who opens fire on Troy and Griffin near the end of the movie) is never seen again after Troy and Griffin get trapped in the flooded basement.
• When It Rains, It Pours: Played straight in the movie as soon the hurricane arrives, and also once the city gets in the Eye of the Storm, as it then quickly stops for a couple minutes. Considering that In-Universe the television broadcasts also lampshade this trope (warning about a heavy Downpour), it makes you wonder why none of the characters brought at least a light raincoat with themselves in anticipation.
• Would Hit a Girl: John has no problem cuffing Jess to a chair, then kicking said chair to the ground and threatening to execute her.
  • Played with the Mook guarding the entrance near the end of the movie. He is definitely hesitant on shooting Troy (given that she's wearing a doctor's attire and dragging a seriously wounded civilian around), but once they both take aim at each other, he pulls the trigger.
• You Have Failed Me: John frequently pulls this (and his gun) on his Mooks he grows dissatisfied with.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: John also has no problem killing off any civilians or even his own associates if he has no further use of them.

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