Provocative
themes related to counterculture idealism, illegal drugs, police corruption,
and the Vietnam War intersect in Who’ll Stop the Rain, an exceptionally
well-made drama/thriller that, somehow, never quite gels. The film is praiseworthy
in many important ways, boasting evocative production values, sensitive
performances, and suspenseful situations, so the picture’s shortcomings are outweighed
by its plentiful virtues. Nonetheless, Who’ll Stop the Rain is
frustrating, because judicious editing—or, better still, bolder reimagining during the
process of translating the source material into a film script—could have accentuated the most important
elements while also providing greater clarity and simplicity. Some background: Robert Stone, the author of the underlying novel and also the co-writer the script, ran with a cool crowd in the ’60s and ’70s, gaining
insight into hipster icons ranging from Neil Cassady to Ken Kesey. Stone also
amalgamated data about the role dope played in the lives of U.S. soldiers
serving in Vietnam. The writer blended these ideas, plus notions from his
fertile imagination, into the novel Dog Soldiers, which won the National
Book Award in 1975. Alas, Stone’s story got muddy on the way to the screen.
The picture follows three interconnected characters. During a prologue
set in Vietnam, burned-out journalist John Converse (Michael Moriarty) hatches
a get-rich scheme: He buys a stash of heroin, and then recruits his friend,
soldier Ray Hicks (Nick Nolte), to smuggle the smack inside a military
transport when Hicks returns to America. Right away, this set-up illuminates
the textured character dynamics at work in Who’ll Stop the Rain; there’s
a great moment when Hicks expresses surprise Converse is willing to use him so
brazenly, thus revealing how deeply Converse’s idealism has been eroded by the
ugliness of war. Hicks mules the package successfully, but unloading the drugs
stateside proves troublesome. Converse’s wife, Marge (Tuesday Weld), has become
a prescription-drug addict and therefore can’t arrange Hicks’ payoff as
instructed. Worse, a corrupt DEA agent (Anthony Zerbe) pounces on the Converse
home—while Hicks is there with the drugs—in order to steal the narcotics and
wipe out anyone who gets in his way. Hicks escapes with Marge, but this sets in
motion a long chase leading from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Meanwhile,
Converse returns to the U.S. and gets captured by the DEA agent, who tortures
the would-be drug mogul and uses him for bait to lure Hicks (and Marge) from
hiding. All of this culminates with a wild shootout at Hicks’ hippie hideaway
in the Southern California desert.
Listing all the ways this story doesn’t work
cinematically would take a while—for instance, Converse departs the narrative
for long stretches, and the quasi-romance between Hicks and Marge feels both
contrived and needlessly downbeat. But none of these problems diminish the
texture of Who’ll Stop the Rain. The movie’s acting is amazing, with
Nolte at his animalistic best, Weld capturing a queasy sort of bewilderment,
and Moriarty sweating his way through a vivid turn as a pathetic striver. Zerbe
is memorably insidious, while the actors playing his low-rent henchmen—Richard
Masur and Ray Sharkey—add surprising elements of humor and terror. Director
Karel Reisz, always stronger with atmosphere and character than with story,
generates tremendous realism even in the most outrageous scenes (e.g., the
final shootout), and his filmmaking soars at periodic intervals. Ultimately,
the power of Who’ll Stop the Rain stems from the cumulative mood of
despair that the filmmakers generate—if nothing else, Who’ll Stop the Rain
captures something profound about how it felt to sort through the mess of
Vietnam while history was still unfolding.
Who’ll Stop the Rain: GROOVY
