movie review force of nature

Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, force of nature.

Now streaming on:

Even a script written by algorithm would make more sense than "Force of Nature," a dumb dud of a movie that relies on the most preposterous of coincidences and the most exhausted of premises (in both senses of the word). 

In fact, the premise is the premises. The Category 5 storm is just a convenience to both keep everyone in an apartment building that two cops are trying to evacuate, and to cut off their communications. The group stuck inside includes: an old guy with a secret who won't leave, another old guy named Ray ( Mel Gibson ) who is an ailing retired cop (but completely up on all the latest cop gossip and cases). He also refuses to leave. Then there's his beautiful but worried doctor daughter ( Kate Bosworth ), a survivalist with an arsenal stockpile, and a guy who got in trouble at the grocery store for trying to buy a hundred pounds of meat ( William Catlett ), whose only explanation is that he has to feed his pet, Janet.  

Also in the building: a bunch of ruthless crooks who are looking for ... something we won't know until later. But we know right away that they are ruthless because the trigger-happy top guy, known as John the Baptist ( David Zayas ), shoots a nice old lady and one of his own people just because he gets annoyed with them.

Trying to stay on top of all of this is cop number one, Cardillo ( Emile Hirsch ), a cynical (say it with me) burned-out loner with a tragic past who cannot be bothered to do his job, much less learn Spanish. He's got that whole "I'm too old for this"/"I wasn't even supposed to be here" vibe. He's just running out the clock on his retirement. His new partner exists just to provide contrast. Cardillo has turned off his feelings but warmhearted Jess ( Stephanie Cayo ) is a native Puerto Rican who is dedicated to the job. 

Director Michael Polish moves the characters around the building like chess pieces. Over here, one group is dealing with a life-threatening injury. Over there, another group is hiding out from John's indistinguishable assault-weapon-wielding goons, who want the treasure but do not know exactly where it is. The shoot-outs and hide-outs and other action scenes are staged adequately, but the characters are so generic, with every element so obviously designed solely to set up some unsurprising revelation, that any tension dissipates. So do the pauses for characters to bind their wounds while sharing synthetic backstories.

Given the devastating impact of the actual Category 5 Hurricane Maria in 2017, using a storm like that as a peg for a heist movie is in questionable taste. But it doesn't stop there. The plot-by-bullet-point adds not only the personal redemption and realizations of various characters but also piles on racial profiling and the Holocaust, tossed in to add unearned heft to the confrontations and lessons learned. 

The final scene is almost a cynical parody of action movie endings, with an implausible romantic connection and a downright ridiculous disposition of some of the treasure. Chekhov famously said, "One must never place a loaded rifle on the stage if it isn't going to go off." A lot of loaded guns, plus Janet the pet, inflict damage before the end of "Force of Nature." I'm pretty sure Chekhov also knew there has to be more than that. 

Now available on digital platforms.

Nell Minow is the Contributing Editor at RogerEbert.com.

Now playing

Glenn Kenny

Kaiya Shunyata

Matt Zoller Seitz

Force of Nature: The Dry 2

Sheila o'malley.

This Closeness

Young Woman and the Sea

Christy lemire, film credits.

Force of Nature (2020)

Rated R for violence and pervasive language.

Mel Gibson as Ray

Emile Hirsch as Cardillo

Kate Bosworth as Troy

David Zayas as John the Baptist

Stephanie Cayo as Jess

Tyler Jon Olson as Dillon

Rey Hernandez as Lt. Cunningham

• Michael Polish
• Cory Miller

Cinematographer

• Jayson Crothers
• Raúl Marchand Sánchez
• Kubilay Uner

Latest blog posts

The Language of Horror: Ishana Night Shyamalan on The Watchers

Everybody Wants Some!! Told Us Everything We Needed to Know About Glen Powell

Cannes 2024 Video #9: Festival Wrapup

The Future of the Movies, Part 3

‘Force of Nature’: Film Review

Cops fight crooks in a hurricane-lashed apartment complex in Michael Polish's entertaining action thriller.

By Dennis Harvey

Dennis Harvey

Film Critic

• ‘Sabbath Queen’ Review: A Provocative If Cluttered Face-Off Between Different Notions of Judaism 2 hours ago
• ‘I Used to Be Funny’ Review: A Complex Canadian Seriocomedy in Which Laughter Suffers a Breakdown 3 days ago
• ‘Queen of the Deuce’ Review: A Fun Footnote About a Behind-The-Scenes Mogul of the Sexual Revolution 2 weeks ago

A category five hurricane is the least of the perils confronting characters in “ Force of Nature .” Set in Puerto Rico during such a tempest, this diverting thriller from director Michael Polish has Emile Hirsch as a cop protecting various apartment building residents (including Kate Bosworth and Mel Gibson ) from a murderous gang of thieves. Yet more complicating factors, from wild animals to Nazi war booty, get thrown into the hectic hopper of Cory Miller’s first produced feature screenplay. None of this is particularly credible, let alone memorable, but it’s all executed with sufficient energy and humor to make for an enjoyable night’s entertainment. Lionsgate is releasing to U.S. home formats on July 30.

After a short prelude showing Gibson’s ex-cop character taking a tricky shot during a torrential downpour (a point the film catches up to again midway), we rewind eight hours to clear blue skies, as reports warn of an imminent conflagration in which flash floods, mudslides and winds up to 140 are anticipated.

Related Stories

2024 emmy nominations need to bless the creator economy’s best, 'hacks' creators on that finale twist and deborah and ava's relationship: 'it's arousing that she has a worthy opponent'.

San Juan police have orders to forcibly evacuate any holdouts in vulnerable areas, for which purpose suicidal ex-NYPD veteran Cardillo (Hirsch) and eager-for-action rookie Pena (Peruvian actress/pop star Stephanie Cayo, in her first English-language role) get paired. They wind up taking custody of a Black man (Will Catlett’s Griffin) caught in an altercation trying to buy 100 lbs. of meat amidst panicked buying at a supermarket. When he tells them he needs to feed his “pet,” and that there are also a couple old men who refuse to leave their flats, the officers agree to stop at his apartment complex.

Popular on Variety

There, they find just what Griffin had promised, more or less: A not-remotely-domesticated carnivore kept behind a heavily barred door; an elderly gent (Jorge Luis Ramos’ Bergkamp) behind his own suspiciously high-security barriers; and Ray (Gibson), a retired mainland cop in ornery good spirits but poor health. He declines to be evacuated, knowing he’ll end up in a hospital as doctor daughter Troy (Bosworth) insists he should.

Getting all these resistant folk out to safety, as the storm is now fully lashing out, would be difficult enough. But it gets a lot trickier once John (David Zayas) and his henchmen show up, fresh from having killed two people during a bank job. They’re a brutish lot who’ve pulled off several high-end heists in recent weeks. Their current shopping list won’t be complete without acquiring valuable items they’re convinced one of the local residents has squirreled away.

When Cardillo witnesses them blasting away the building’s unlucky super, he quickly susses what the good guys are up against: a half-dozen well-armed killers. Evening out the odds somewhat are the presence of two active police; secretive survivalist type Bergkamp’s private arsenal of weapons; Troy’s medical skills, which come in handy once nearly everyone starts getting wounded; and Ray, who may be on dialysis but doesn’t intend to let a few thugs shorten his lifespan, or deny himself the pleasure of wasting ’em.

Though various offscreen antics might have permanently removed him from the industry A-list (as an actor if not director), Gibson still gives good value in the crankypants roles that have long been a personal specialty, most famously in the “Lethal Weapon” series. It’s a tad disappointing his material isn’t more inspired (or his role larger) here, but he helps make “Force” fun by taking it none too seriously. Ditto Hirsch, whose hero is a virtual Ray-in-training junior misanthrope made bitter rather than sorrowful by the inevitable tragic on-duty backstory. Cardillo is softened, however, by romantic sparking under duress with Bosworth’s Troy, and the movie wisely decides to let their bantering courtship — advancing during moments such as her stitching up his bullet wound — play as comedy.

The David Lynchian affectations of his early features now well behind him, Polish doesn’t demonstrate any great flair for suspense or violent action. But he keeps this potboiler moving briskly enough to prevent its overloaded plot from tumbling into silliness, and the cast is solid enough to skate over occasional duff dialogue.

Shot on location in Puerto Rico, albeit primarily limited to one six-story setting, the film lets its director maintain some of his erstwhile art-house style solely in the realm of visuals. Which is all to the good — this action B picture benefits from inviting splashes of idiosyncratic color in both production designer Mailara Santana Pomales’ apartment interiors and the lighting of DP Jayson Crothers’ widescreen compositions.

Reviewed online, San Francisco, June 29, 2020. MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 91 MIN.

• Production: A Lionsgate release of a Lionsgate, Grindstone EntertainmentGroup, Emmet Furla Oasis Films presentation of an Emmet Furla Oasis Films, thePimienta Film Co. production, in association with River Bay Films, SSSEntertainment, Way Down East Entertainment. Producers: Randall Emmett, George Furla, Shuan Sanghani, Mark Stewart, Luillo Ruiz. Executive producers: Tim Sullivan, Alex Eckert, Ceasar Richbow, Walter Josten, Luis Fiefkohl, Brandon Powers, Landon Gorman, Ted Fox, Lee Broda, Christian Mercuri, Alastair Burlingham, Gary Raskin, Paul Weinberg, Charlie Dombek, Barry Brooker, Stan Wrtlieb, Cyril Megret, Bobby Ranghelov, Diana Principe, Jonathan Baker. Co-executive producer: Ryan Black.
• Crew: Director: Michael Polish. Screnplay: Cory Miller. Camera: Jayson Crothers. Editors: Paul Buhl, Raul Marchand Sanchez. Music: Kubilay Uner.
• With: Emile Hirsch, Kate Bosworth, Mel Gibson, David Zayas, Stephanie Cayo, Will Catlett, Swen Temmel, Tyler Jon Olson, Jorge Luis Ramos. (English, Spanish dialogue)

More from Variety

Daytime emmys 2024 full winners list: ‘general hospital,’ ‘kelly clarkson show’ win top awards, scarlett johansson vs. sam altman is the ‘black widow’ sequel we didn’t know we needed, summer game fest: ‘batman: arkham shadow,’ ‘mortal kombat 1’ trailers, blumhouse reveals 6 titles and tim robinson teases ea’s ‘skate’, jojo siwa drinks from vodka bottle at l.a. pride and drags online troll who called her a man: ‘i f—ed more girls than him’, layoff surge highlights disconnect between job volume, success at gaming companies, cécile mclorin salvant, silvana estrada provide two master classes for the price of one in brilliant disney hall double header: concert review, more from our brands, jelly roll duets with mgk, shirtless bert kreischer during spotify house’s cma fest weekend, how to collect vintage watches: 5 expert tips from dealer alan bedwell, capitals to purchase, privatize popular nhl salary site capfriendly, the best loofahs and body scrubbers, according to dermatologists, michael mosley, british tv presenter, dead at 67 — had been missing for days, verify it's you, please log in.

Home » Movies » Movie Reviews

Force of Nature review – the film equivalent of a natural disaster

Personally, I liked this film better when it was called Hard Rain starring Morgan Freeman and Christian Slater, but not really.

There isn’t much   that you can say that you haven’t read before about movies like Force of Nature . It’s a  poor heist thriller wrapped in a natural disaster setting with dialogue that defies gravity by lingering in the air above the knee-high water below. It left me dumbfounded.

The shocking thing is this disaster was directed by Michael Polish, one half of the mercurial Polish brother   team. Together, they made such distinctive looking and   especially   sounding films like Jackport, Northfork (a forgotten gem ) , Twin Falls Idaho, and The Astronaut Farmer , but I’m sure brother Mark is thanking the skies for not being responsible for this script that actually uses the line, “So cliché, so cliché,” yet it isn’t even making fun of itself.

How could he not be with such poetic lines as a response from a villain asking a police officer named Cardillo (played by Emile Hirsh) where   the old man (Ray, played by Mel Gibson) is, he responds, “He’s up in my ass, do you want to tickle his feet?” Oh, that’s not all. S cribe Cory Miller found ways to break new ground by having John (David Zayas) the mastermind behind the heist, intimidate   a woman with an abnormal amount of astute matter- of-factness by asking, “Will let you know how it feels for a bullet to go through your skin and into your brain?” Yup, it’s that on the nose.

There are bound to be some script problems in a  film like this, but I must say I liked this movie in 1997 when it was called Hard Rain starring Morgan Freeman and Christian Slater, but not really. Like that film, both have a group of bad guys trying to use a natural disaster to cover up the fact they are stealing a large amount of cash or valuables they don’t have ownership rights to. I’m glad Emile Hirsh is getting some steady work, but he (along with Gibson) is so over-the-top i t loses any effectiveness. Kate Bosworth also pops up as Ray’s daughter and does get to flex some heroic muscles, but when she does they stretch the laws of physics and lose any sense of thrills in the process. Force of Nature flirts with some originality that doesn’t quite work considering this place they are robbing isn’t a motel (when you watch —   but don’t —   you will understand), and Zayas delivers the only coherent line in the film that has a glimpse of competency.

The film though is the kind made with action puzzle  pieces   you know are coming and are incompletely delivered. For instance, in a stunning act of incompetency that happens a handful of times throughout the movie, a bad guy equipped with a semiautomatic rifle can miss two full-grown adults who are clung together like they are in a three-legged race. The targets are less than ten feet  apart, in a narrow hallway, and not one bullet hits their intended destination, and targets   run   away even though one has a bite mark on his leg that prevents him from walking — yup, Force of Nature , it’s that kind of movie.

Article by Marc Miller

Marc Miller (also known as M.N. Miller) joined Ready Steady Cut in April 2018 as a Film and TV Critic, publishing over 1,600 articles on the website. Since a young age, Marc dreamed of becoming a legitimate critic and having that famous “Rotten Tomato” approved status – in 2023, he achieved that status.

Echo Boomers review - more drama than thriller with sharply written characters

The Lake season 1, episode 5 recap - the Boathouse Talent Show

This website cannot be displayed as your browser is extremely out of date.

Please update your browser to one of the following: Chrome , Firefox , Edge

The Definitive Voice of Entertainment News

Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter

site categories

‘force of nature’: film review.

Emile Hirsch, Kate Bosworth and Mel Gibson tangle with a gang of violent thieves trying to pull off an art heist during a hurricane in Michael Polish's action thriller set in Puerto Rico.

By David Rooney

David Rooney

Chief Film Critic

• Share on Facebook
• Share to Flipboard
• Send an Email
• Show additional share options
• Share on LinkedIn
• Share on Pinterest
• Share on Reddit
• Share on Tumblr
• Share on Whats App
• Print the Article
• Post a Comment

The devastation unleashed on Puerto Rico by Hurricane Maria in 2017 caused almost 3,000 fatalities, the loss of 80 percent of the territory’s agriculture, prolonged power and water outages and a difficult economic recovery that remains ongoing. Then there was the appalling spectacle of Donald Trump tossing paper towels into a crowd of San Juan citizens in a bizarre interpretation of presidential compassion just a month after the disaster. Haven’t our stateless Caribbean compatriots suffered enough? Apparently not, according to the big oafish lummox of an action thriller, Force of Nature .

In this thoroughly unnecessary Lionsgate release, a skeevy bunch of locals decide that a Category 5 storm with 160 mile-per-hour winds and torrential rains is a good time to attempt a $55 million art heist. The reasons for that rash scheduling are never quite explained so let’s just assume they did it because there wouldn’t have been a movie otherwise. What they didn’t count on, however, was a trio of white saviors (plus one Latina cop who’s mostly along for the ride), including Mel Gibson playing a grizzlier version of his loose-cannon wiseacre from Lethal Weapon , Martin Riggs.

Release date: Jun 30, 2020

Michael Polish ( Big Sur , Amnesiac ) directs with his foot nailed to the accelerator, but all the manic energy in the world can’t stave off the boredom of Cory Miller’s script, which is a deadly combination of convoluted and thin.

After a quick preview of apocalyptic thunder and lightning accompanied by dire warnings of mudslides, flash-flooding and storm surges, the action rewinds to eight hours earlier. But from the hyperactivity of Jayson Crothers’ camera, you’d be forgiven for thinking the weather was already raising hell. While Kubilay Uner’s portentous score slathers on the drama, the visuals dart about from Condado beachfronts to luxury high-rises, from rich neighborhoods to poor. Just 5 minutes in, I already felt nauseous from all the crazy zooms and whip pans.

A bad hombre who goes by John the Baptist ( David Zayas ) casually pops a bullet in a well-heeled matron along with one of his own goons after removing what appears to be a rolled-up Picasso from the woman’s safe deposit box. Meanwhile, across town, Cardillo ( Emile Hirsch ), a cop we later learn was demoted from detective after a fatal misjudgment, is contemplating suicide in the bathtub. We know that because he sticks a gun in his mouth then thinks better of it. At the precinct, he gets partnered with Jess Peña (Stephanie Cayo) and put on evacuation duty to remove holdouts to safety.

They pick up local resident Griffin (Will Catlett) after an altercation at a market where he’s attempting to buy 100 pounds of meat for his pet, a savage beast of some unidentified species that gets testy when she’s not fed. (Plot point alert!) They make a detour stop at Griffin’s apartment block, which turns out to be a less swanky Nakatomi Plaza, with tighter hallways and courtyards to cramp the action.

Related Stories

Mel gibson denies renewed allegations of anti-semitism against winona ryder.

Cardillo — did someone think that by giving Hirsch a Hispanic surname people might not notice all the leads are white? — soon gets sidetracked helping exasperated doctor Troy ( Kate Bosworth ) budge her recalcitrant retired cop father Ray (Gibson). He’s on dialysis and needs to be moved to a hospital, but Ray is a feisty old tiger, so he pops a couple more Oxys and insists on toughing it out. The storm keeps surging even if the tension doesn’t as Cardillo and Troy then try to evacuate Bergkamp (Jorge Luis Ramos), a German senior who may or may not be a former Nazi. The heavy security protecting his apartment suggests mucho loot inside, which explains the attraction for John the Baptist and his thugs.

They bring along plenty of firepower but Ray also has access to a full arsenal of weaponry. With the building under siege, a series of shoot-outs and fights ensue, all choreographed in a blur beneath the deluge of rain and the agitated camerawork. Not one of the action sequences packs any punch, partly because there’s been virtually no character development; most of the casualties barely merit names. In one of the more laughable moments, a character is spared a bullet to the brain when the eye of the storm conveniently passes over.

While Gibson is the center of Lionsgate’s marketing, he’s very much a supporting player, phoning in a performance we’ve seen from him countless times before with better dialogue. Ray is a smug old goat we’re meant to find amusingly irascible. Meh. This is not the movie that’s going to get Gibson uncanceled.

Though Hirsch has been compelling in films like Into the Wild , he makes an uncharismatic lead here. Cardillo starts out surly and bitter, but whenever he has a quiet moment with Troy, the tender reprieve in Uner’s otherwise hyperventilating score signals romance and healing. She’s a medic, so makes sense! Bosworth has nothing interesting to play, though she does get a strange speech about Ray bringing home loads of frozen turkeys at Thanksgiving to use as target practice, which explains why she’s both a crack shot and a surgeon, given the time she spent as a kid extracting bullets from poultry. No, really.

There’s a potentially topical moment where African American Griffin explains that he moved to Puerto Rico after experiencing police brutality, but nothing here is sufficiently grounded in character or authentic emotion to resonate. As for Zayas, let’s just say John the Baptist is no Hans Gruber, even if he does know his Vermeers. I wondered if his name was a tipoff to an eventual decapitation, but the inane script doesn’t have that much wit.

San Juan looks handsome in the opening scenes, but thereafter gets dumped on, in more ways than one. For all its sound and fury, Force of Nature is a wet mishmash of elements from better movies that leaves scarcely a ripple in its wake.

Production companies: Emmett Furla Oasis Films, The Pimienta Film Co., in association with River Bay Films, SSS Entertainment, Way Down East Entertainment Distributor: Lionsgate (VOD) Cast: Emile Hirsch, Kate Bosworth, Mel Gibson, David Zayas, Stephanie Cayo, Will Catlett, Sven Temmel, Tyler Jon Olson, Jorge Luis Ramos Director: Michael Polish Screenwriter: Cory Miller Producers: Randall Emmett, George Furla, Shaun Sanghani, Mark Stewart, Luillo Ruiz Executive producers: Walter Josten, Luis Riefkohl, Brandon Powers, Landon Gorman, Ted Fox, Lee Broda, Christian Mercuri, Alastair Burlingham, Gary Raskin, Paul Weinberg, Charlie Dombek, Barry Brooker, Stan Wertrieb, Cyril Megret, Bobby Ranghelov, Diana Principe, Alex Eckert, Tim Sullivan, Caesar Richbow, Jonathan Baker Director of photography: Jayson Crothers Production designer: Mailara Santana Pomales Costume designer: Ana C. Ramirez Velez Music: Kubilay Uner Editors: Paul Buhl, Raúl Marchand Sánchez Casting: Sheila Jaffe, Bryan Riley, Zoraida Sanjurjo López

Rated R, 91 minutes

THR Newsletters

Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day

More from The Hollywood Reporter

‘darkest miriam’ review: britt lower in a marvel of a drama about a young librarian’s loves and fears, carrie coon and shea whigham talk their ‘fargo’ reunion in ‘lake george’ and ‘mission: impossible 8’, why you should be watching ‘the watchers’, box office: will smith’s ‘bad boys 4’ delivers huge victory for actor with $56m u.s. debut, $104.6m globally, will smith surprises moviegoers at ‘bad boys: ride or die’ los angeles screening, ‘adult best friends’ review: endearing debut tackles the awkwardness of aging friendships.

Force of Nature

Where to Watch

Emile Hirsch (Cardillo) Mel Gibson (Ray) David Zayas (John) Kate Bosworth (Troy) Stephanie Cayo (Jess Pena) Tyler Jon Olson (Dillon) Jorge Luis Ramos (Bergkamp) William Catlett (Griffin) Blas Sien Diaz (Migs) Joksan Ramos (Cruz)

Michael Polish

A gang of thieves plan a heist during a hurricane and encounter trouble when a cop tries to force everyone in the building to evacuate.

More about Force of Nature

Mel Gibson and aggrieved cops make Force Of Nature as ill-timed as it is dull

In his 1998 review , Roger Ebert called the heist thriller Hard Rain “a documentary about wet actors at work.” This, …

Advertisement

Mel Gibson gets his very own Hurricane Heist in the Force Of Nature trailer

Unfortunately for literally everyone, Force Of Nature is not a remake of the 1999 rom-com , but with Sandra Bullock …

Notice: All forms on this website are temporarily down for maintenance. You will not be able to complete a form to request information or a resource. We apologize for any inconvenience and will reactivate the forms as soon as possible.

• DVD & Streaming

Force of Nature

• Action/Adventure , Crime , Drama

Content Caution

In Theaters

• Mel Gibson as Ray Barrett; Emile Hirsch as Cardillo; Kate Bosworth as Troy Barrett; Stephanie Cayo as Jess Peña; David Zayas as John the Baptist; William Catlett as Griffin; and Jasper Polish as Jasmine

Home Release Date

• July 3, 2020
• Michael Polish

Distributor

Movie review.

When a Category 5 hurricane hits Puerto Rico, Officer Cardillo and his partner, Officer Peña, are sent to evacuate everyone from an apartment building there. But they soon encounter two unexpected problems: an aging and ill-tempered ex-cop named Ray Barrett who doesn’t want to leave, and a band of thieves who planned a heist on the day of the hurricane.

Suffice it to say it’s not the kind of day Cardillo was looking for.

These days, hesitancy haunts Cardillo. A few years before, a police rendezvous went poorly, resulting in the death of his girlfriend, Jasmine. Meanwhile, Jess Peña eagerly seeks to establish herself as an officer with a trustworthy reputation. And she helps to redeem Cardillo by resurrecting his sense of duty as an officer when things quickly go from bad to worse at the apartment building.

First, a man named Griffin (whom the officers are escorting back to his apartment after an altercation at a grocery store), gets bitten badly by his dog. As the police try to find someone to help him, they come across recalcitrant Ray (who is not planning on evacuating) and his daughter, Troy, who’s a doctor.

Then there are those thieves. They’re looking for a vast sum of money supposedly hidden somewhere in the complex. And they will not hesitate to harm anyone and everyone in the building to get what they want.

Chased and shot at by the thieves, Cardillo and Troy try to navigate the apartment’s twisting hallways while keeping themselves and everyone else alive. It’s certainly more than they bargained for. But the thieves, led by a guy named John the Baptist, face some unexpected challenges, too … not the least of which is Ray Barrett.

Positive Elements

We see that Cardillo’s traumatic history as a cop has left him cynical and hurting. At one point, for example, he complains to Peña that if they try to evacuate residents against their will, people will just get their badge names and file a complaint. But Peña argues back, saying that they have to do their job—which she believes is an important one at that.

Griffin, for his part, has a bad history with the police. But through his interactions with Cardillo and Peña, he comes to respect and appreciate cops in a new way. Cardillo visits Griffin in the hospital, and Griffin tells him, “Who would’ve thought I’d be this happy to see a cop walk through these doors.”

All in all, Cardillo experiences a sense of redemption in his career, largely through the support and optimism of Peña (and Troy as well). He’s also reminded that police officers are necessary and good for the communities and individuals they serve—even if sometimes that’s hard to recognize.

Elsewhere amid the turmoil of the hurricane, Troy and Ray attempt to mend their broken father-daughter relationship. Ray acknowledges that he has been harsh with Troy, and she tells him “I love you, Dad.”

Various characters repeatedly put their lives on the line for the sake of protecting or rescuing others.

Spiritual Elements

The lead criminal calls himself John the Baptist. The reason behind this obviously sarcastic nickname is never explained.

We see a painting of the virgin Mary that’s splattered with blood after someone is shot in the head.

Sexual Content

A brief flashback shows Cardillo making out with his girlfriend, Jasmine, in his car. Jasmine is clothed, but she is wearing a revealing tank top with her bra visible beneath it. Cardillo is in an undershirt. She sits on top of him, kisses him, and begs him not to answer a police radio call. The same flashback is replayed later in the movie.

We hear a brief slang reference to a woman having sex. Troy kisses Cardillo on the cheek. There’s a suggestive reference to someone’s crotch.

Violent Content

As you’d expect in an R-rated Mel Gibson movie, a hurricane of violence accompanies the action here.

Multiple people are shot or severely wounded. Innocent victims get shot in the head without warning, including a gruesome scene where a dead body lies on the apartment steps, and we see the blood run down with the rain. Blood smears the walls, and often marks people’s faces and bodies.

In a particularly disturbing moment, a man puts a gun in his mouth, apparently on the verge of committing suicide; but he ultimately decides not to do it.

Griffin’s monstrous dog attacks him, and we see the wound in detail when Troy stitches it up. Griffin’s dog attacks and kills another man, although it occurs offscreen. Multiple characters get shot, then stitched up.

Troy and Cardillo climb the scaffolding outside the building, and Troy jokes, “If I fall, shoot me. I don’t want to die in four hours of a brain hemorrhage.”

We see multiple fistfights. People are body-slammed against walls, and limbs get twisted. Peña is bound to a chair and violently kicked while held at gunpoint.

The criminals use explosives to break down doors. Ray and Peña find an apartment room stocked floor to ceiling with guns, and they eagerly load up on weapons.

Griffin trains his dog to attack police because of his bad history with them—a nod to our current moment’s racial tension between blacks and police. In his apartment, we see a ripped-up replica of a police officer. We eventually learn that he was accused by a police officer of committing a robbery because he fit the description (“black male, 18 to 40s”).

Crude or Profane Language

Force of Nature is likewise flooded with vulgar language. We hear the f-word about 75 times, the s-word 20 times and a– about 15 times. God is misused five times, three of which are paired with “d—.” Jesus’ name is misused once. Other vulgarities include “a–,” “h—,” “p-ssed,” “b–tard” and “b–ch.”

Drug and Alcohol Content

Ray takes the prescription pain medication OxyContin, which he calls “Oxies.” We see him dumping a vial of pills down his throat.

Peña brags to Ray about the time she caught a drug thief, saying that she found “93 baggies of crack cocaine” stuffed in his pants.

Other Negative Elements

A white male calls the police because he sees Griffin taking all the meat from the grocery store and assumes a crime has been committed.

Ray later tells Peña why he refused to go to the hospital with his daughter Troy. He explains that the doctors want to perform a “fecal transplant” on him, in which a doctor “takes someone else’s s— and puts it in your body.”

Force of Nature may offer some intriguing elements, such as a stellar performance from Mel Gibson, beautiful shots of Puerto Rico and heart-pounding action. But the extreme violence and pervasive profanity that saturate this action film make it anything but family friendly.

The movie includes some redemptive themes, such as emphasizing the honor and respect police officers deserve for their service, as well as Cardillo’s personal sense of redemption at the close of the movie.

That said, don’t look for any satisfying reflections on dealing with racism in our culture. Griffin’s hatred for police, for instance, is never addressed with any depth. Instead, the movie seems to justify his anger. Likewise, characters here often try to resolve their problems with violence, profanity or both.

So if you are looking for an action-packed drama, you can probably skip this one and find satisfaction in another story that dispenses with so much foul language and pervasive violence.

Anne Ziegler

Anne Ziegler studies English and music at Hillsdale College, and she’s serving this summer as an intern for Focus on the Family’s Parenting department. She enjoys living in mountainous Colorado on her summer and winter breaks when she’s not at school in the frigid Midwest. You can usually catch her baking bread or trying a new recipe she pulled from Pinterest (Mexican street tacos are a new favorite). She’ll listen to anything Classical, but she particularly fancies Rachmaninov and Chopin. Her favorite hobbies include practicing the piano, reading fantasy novels and taking walks.

Latest Reviews

Big City Greens the Movie: Spacecation

The Watchers

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Weekly reviews straight to your inbox.

‘Force of Nature’ Review: Mel Gibson Thriller Is One Toxic Shock

By Peter Travers

Peter Travers

Given all the noise around Force of Nature, it’s hard to get at the movie itself, which on the surface is no more than a routine crime thriller set in San Juan, Puerto Rico during a Category 5 hurricane. What’s not routine is the tweetstorm of controversy ignited by the casting of Mel Gibson and Emile Hirsch, both actors with assault charges on their records, as white cops battling “Rican” villains against the carnage of Hurricane Maria. To say that a real-life tragedy deserves more respect than simply being exploited as a backdrop for a trivial B movie about an art heist would be putting it mildly.

So there’s that. Hirsch, far from the glory days of Into the Wild, takes the lead role of Cardillo, a cop assigned to evacuate an apartment building before the storm hits maximum impact. An old man, a doctor and a cop are among those refusing to vacate the premises. Cardillo, a former member of the NYPD, is ordered to partner with Latina officer Jess Peña (Stephanie Cayo), a local who speaks Spanish, to help with the holdouts. The suicidal Cardillo — a flashback shows him holding a gun to his head in a bathtub after the death of his lover — is a mess.

A bigger mess is Ray, the gung-ho retired cop played by Gibson as if his Lethal Weapon character had turned into a grumpy old man. Ray needs a dialysis machine to function, but he has no intention of returning to a hospital where his next operation is a fecal transplant where he claims, “somebody else’s shit is injected in my ass.” Despite the pleas of the beautiful Dr. Troy (Kate Bosworth), who is also Ray’s daughter, the hardass won’t budge. There is also a barely-caged wild animal on the premises. Her name is Janet and if her owner, Griffin (William Catlett) — the film’s one major black character — doesn’t feed her 100 pounds of raw meat, well … even Joe Exotic couldn’t sooth this savage breast. It should be mentioned that Janet is a cop-hater since Griffin had a previous run-in with white police that left him vengeful.

Editor’s picks

Every awful thing trump has promised to do in a second term, the 250 greatest guitarists of all time, the 500 greatest albums of all time, the 50 worst decisions in movie history.

What to do? Screenwriter Cory Miller, who spent four years as an investigator for the NYPD Internal Affairs unit, had many topical themes to develop here. Instead, Miller contrives to have a gang of San Juan thieves, led by — and the name’s for real — John the Baptist (David Zayas), bust into the apartment complex to retrieve millions in art treasures from Bergkamp (Jorge Luis Ramos), a German senior who Cardillo terms “an old man Nazi fuck” when he hesitates to give up his precious art to save lives. Did you know that Van Gogh’s stolen and still missing Poppy Flowers is worth $55 million? John the Baptist does. And when this crook is not casually slaughtering everyone in sight, he shows off his knowledge.

The actors are helpless against a script that forces them to trade simpering backstories when they’re not shooting to kill or making bad jokes. “Take off your uniform,” says John the Baptist to Cardillo in an effort to disguise himself as the law. “What — I just met you,” smirks the cop in one of the film’s feeble attempts at banter. For many, the film’s shocking incompetence can only be rivaled by the greater shock of learning that Force of Nature is directed by Michael Polish. For the past two decades, the filmmaker (along with his identical twin, Mark Polish, who often co-writes and takes an acting role in the films his brother directs) have been constants on the art-house circuit. From their 1999 debut feature Twin Falls Idaho through Jackpot (2001), Northfork (2003) and For Lovers Only (2011), the brothers established themselves as distinctive talents. There is nothing distinctive about this toxic available-on-demand tripe except the absence of Mark Polish, though Michael didn’t spare his wife Kate Bosworth from acting duty in a thankless role. One thing’s for sure: This downpour of offensive ethnic stereotyping is a total washout.

'Tuesday' Makes a Case for Death — and For Julia Louis-Dreyfus Being an Oscar-Worthy Actor

• MOVIE REVIEW
• By David Fear

Julia Louis-Dreyfus on Political Correctness: ‘As It Equates to Tolerance,' It’s ‘Fantastic’

• By Althea Legaspi

'Deadpool & Wolverine' Teaser Has People Arguing If These Legs Belong to Taylor Swift or Blake Lively

• best friends day
• By Daniel Kreps

Dick Van Dyke, at 98, Becomes Oldest Daytime Emmy Winner Ever

• history maker

Pat Sajak Says Goodbye to 'Wheel of Fortune': 'Thank You for Allowing Me Into Your Lives'

Most popular, rob schneider booted mid-set from another stage after attendees walk out, 'you have a big mouth and a crazy mind': robert downey jr. and jodie foster reunite to discuss tv triumphs and being 'surprisingly' open to iron man return, insiders claim taylor swift is deeply ‘worried’ about this aspect of travis kelce’s new lifestyle, method man says he'll never perform at summer jam again due to "generation gap", you might also like, korea box office: ai fantasy ‘wonderland’ takes weekend win as ‘bad boys: ride or die’ stalls on first lap, georges wichner, built u.s. businesses for ysl and valentino, dies at 73, the best yoga mats for any practice, according to instructors, kelsey grammer, david oyelowo, and matt bomer celebrate the endless search for artistic authenticity at indiewire’s consider this event, capitals to purchase, privatize popular nhl salary site capfriendly.

Rolling Stone is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2024 Rolling Stone, LLC. All rights reserved.

Verify it's you

Please log in.

• Celebrities
• General Hospital
• Days of Our Lives
• The Bold and the Beautiful
• Young and The Restless
• Movie Lists
• Game of Thrones
• The Walking Dead
• Whatever Happened To
• Supernatural
• The Late Show
• Grey's Anatomy
• Once Upon a Time

Movie Review: Force of Nature

credit: Force of Nature

Some action movies feel rather generic with a few items and elements tossed in to make them feel a little more real and a little more popular among movie fans. Force of Nature certainly tries to add these elements since it employs actors such as Mel Gibson , Kate Bosworth, Emile Hirsch, and a few others. It also includes an incoming hurricane, which is enough to get the attention of many people who love a great disaster movie. But beyond that, it becomes little more than a heist movie that happens to take place during a hurricane and involves a few very stereotypical characters that are brought together to create a movie that is all sorts of ho-hum. It’s sad to say such a thing since Gibson has been such a great action star over the years, but this type of movie makes it easy to think that his reputation still hasn’t recovered fully. The idea of a heist taking place during a hurricane isn’t the worst, but at the same time, it could have been given a little more prep work. 

The feel of this movie is that much of the dialogue was kind of strained. 

From the start, this movie was something that one couldn’t help but think was going to be a tough sell to a lot of people, even with Mel Gibson as part of the cast. It does feel as though he was more of a supporting character, which is likely the case, and thereby not quite as important. Yet, for all that, he ends up stealing the show since he is the most well-known actor in this movie and, as such, is the guy that a lot of audience members are going to be looking for since he has the best reputation among them.  When it comes to a heist movie, this is simple enough to follow since John the Baptist, a renowned thief is out to steal a valuable painting that is being kept by an old man in an apartment complex that is in the path of the oncoming hurricane. 

The story is as one might expect. 

The steps of this story are easy to point out as it goes along, and that could be why it’s not the type of movie that’s being touted as one of the best of its genre . It feels like a movie that was made and then filed away to be found later by those that feel the need for a quick bit of entertainment that might not be remembered the day after. From the moment the heist is started to the moment that Gibson’s character shows that while he’s old but not infirm, the movie is one of those that makes a person feel that the actors didn’t really put everything they had into this one. People can argue all they want about this matter, but the problem is that there was little to no mention of this movie, there wasn’t a lot of hype that led up to it, and the feeling is that it was a throwaway movie to keep everyone working and keep the money rolling in. 

The movie doesn’t really live up to its name. 

The interesting thing about this movie is that it did manage to pull a few actors that have been known for putting up stellar performances in the past, since Hirsch, Gibson, and Bosworth have all managed to create characters that, in the past, people have fully enjoyed and come to appreciate. That wasn’t the case with this movie since each character is likely to be forgotten, while Gibson’s is more akin to many of his other roles that he’s taken on over the years. The idea of turning him into a grizzled old retired police officer was a nice touch, but at the same time, it wasn’t something that was bound to surprise anyone since he’s either been an outlaw or law enforcement agent throughout much of his career. It’s a role he knows how to play, and it’s a role that he’s done well with in more than one movie, but it’s also a role that people definitely expect him to play. 

When all is said and done, this movie is a bit of a disappointment. 

There’s action in this movie, and there is a plot to be followed, but at the same time, it feels as though someone forgot to add enough excitement into the movie, along with enough sense to make certain that it was worth watching. Taking the time to understand the story and get into the characters is worth the time spent, but at the end of the day, this premise was a little too thin to really keep the interest that it was made to create. 

Not all action movies are created equal. 

A lover of great stories and epic tales, Tom is a fan of old and new-school ideas. As a novelist and a screenwriter, he enjoys promoting one story or another. With 18k+ articles and 40 novels written, Tom knows a little something about storytelling.

You must be logged in to post a comment.

• Cast & crew
• User reviews

Force of Nature

• A gang of thieves plan a heist during a hurricane and encounter trouble when a cop tries to force everyone in the building to evacuate.
• An NYPD detective accidentally kills his cop girlfriend after receiving a (fake) gun run call from a project. He's later sent to Puerto Rico for work despite not speaking Spanish. A hurricane hits the island. He and his new partner take a call that takes them via a market to an apartment building with a couple of old men who'll not evacuate. Five armed men come to rob one of them of his safe's content. Shooting begins. — Scott Filtenborg
• A Category 5 hurricane is approaching Puerto Rico and an evacuation order is in effect. A thief who goes by the name of John the Baptist (David Zayas) robs a old woman at a bank of a painting in her safety deposit box and gets an address before killing her and his colleague. Meanwhile a burned out police officer named Cardillo (Emile Hirsch) reports to work as a lowly desk officer, but is told to go out with another officer named Jess Pena (Stephanie Cayo) and evacuate anyone who refuses to leave their homes to a shelter. Cardillo is very upset about being asked to go into the field and is very cynical about the day and he doesn't want to help anyone but his new partner insists that they do. Meanwhile, a customer named Griffin at a market buys up 100 pounds of meat, all of the meat available at the market and gets in a fight with another customer who wants to purchase meat. Cardillo and Pena respond after the security officer detains Griffin and says he needs the meat for his "pet." The officers are about to take him to the evacuation shelter but he insists that he needs to feed his pet cat, and that an old man and a retired police officer are in his apartment complex refusing to evacuate. Due to the fact that a retired police officer needs evacuation, they agree to take Griffin to his apartment so he can feed his pet and they will evacuate everyone in the building. The officers arrive and go to evacuate the retired officer, Ray (Mel Gibson), they find that he absolutely refuses to leave, even though his daughter Troy (Kate Bosworth) is there and is a doctor and has a bed available for him at the hospital as she is worried that Ray's dialysis machine won't work if the power goes out. Ray says he knows Cardillo from a police related incident a year earlier and they get into an yelling argument. Cardillo takes Troy downstairs to the old man's apartment, find out that his name is Paul Bergkamp and he also refuses to leave his home. Pena stays with Ray and tries to convince him to put in a good word for her as she tries to get a promotion. While trying to convince Bergkamp to evacuate, Cardillo witnesses the building superintendent get shot and killed by one of John's men and he gets Troy and Bergkamp to run up the stairs to Griffin's apartment. The thieves work on breaking into Bergkamp's hefty security while some of them go to clear the building as they saw Cardillo and chase the group up the stairs but lose them. When Cardillo, Troy, and Bergkamp arrive at Griffin's apartment, Griffin refuses to let them in as he is about to feed a huge bucket of meat to his pet which is locked in a separate room. Cardillo eventually convinces Griffin to let them in. Cardillo realizes that their radios are down due to the interference from the storm to they can't call for backup. Griffin's pet begins to try to break out of the locked room and eventually does and drags Griffin in by his leg. Griffin has Cardillo bring in the bucket of meat but take off his police uniform as he has trained his pet to attack cops. Cardillo drags Griffin out and locks the pet back into the room and Troy attends to his badly injured leg. Troy requests medical supplies and they go to find a doctor's apartment who Bergkamp says is in the building a few floors above them. However the one stairwell is monitored by the thieves and the elevator doesn't work, so they have to climb the scaffolding. Pena, still unaware of the thieves walks into the hallway and one of the thieves finds her and demands that she lead him to Cardillo and Bergkamp, however Ray shoots and kills the thief. Meanwhile the thieves break into Bergkamp's apartment and find a safe in his basement which is flooding and work on opening it. While Cardillo and Troy climb the scaffolding, Troy almost falls and draws the attention of the thieves who begin shooting at them, but they miss and Cardillo kills one of John's henchmen before they get off the scaffolding and into the nearest apartment. Pena and Ray decide to go after the thieves and go to another apartment that Ray knows has a lot of weapons. Cardillo is confronted in the hallway by a thief who demands Bergkamp as the thieves need him alive. Cardillo fights back and with the help of Troy, but it doesn't work. Cardillo tackles the thief over the balcony and they fall four floors into the concourse and continue fighting in the rain. Ray sees it and moves until he can get a clean shot, but Troy eventually shoots and kills the thief while also shooting Cardillo in the leg. They finally get to the doctor's apartment and Troy stitches up his wound. Cardillo finally tells Troy that he used to be a New York detective, responded to a call of a man with a gun and had his girlfriend Jasmine in the car. He goes into a building and sees a gun barrel and shoots, it turns out that Jasmine, who is also a cop didn't stay in the car as instructed, was the person that Cardillo shot and killed, and that there was no gunman. This is why he was demoted to desk duty in Puerto Rico. Meanwhile, John and the thieves open the safe and find it empty. The thieves then use all of their resources to find Bergkamp as he is the only one who knows where the art is. Ray and Pena get to the apartment which has a whole cache of weapons and they stock up. However a thief interrupts them and makes them disarm. They work together and Pena is able to kill the thief, but Ray is shot in the side even though he is wearing a bullet proof vest. As they try to move, John shoots and mortally wounds Ray in the stairwell and captures Pena. Cardillo and Troy get to Ray and she tries to save him, it doesn't work and Ray tells his daughter how much she means to him as he passes away. Cardillo and Troy make it back to Griffin's apartment where Griffin is slowly bleeding out. John takes Pena to the weapons filled apartment and demands to know where Cardillo and Bergkamp are. John reveals that the original Vincent van Gogh painting, Poppyseeds is in the building and that is what they are looking for. While they are in the eye of the storm, the radios begin to work and John tells Cardillo that he has Pena, not to call for backup and demands Bergkamp and the painting. Cardillo agrees to bring Bergkamp to them so they will release Pena. Bergkamp reveals that his father was a Nazi and passed the paintings to him. When they get to the apartment, they tell John where the art is and John holds them at gunpoint as they lead the way. They go to another apartment which has a room filled with dozens of original paintings on the walls. John then shoots and kills Bergkamp, gets the keys to the police van and steals Cardillo's uniform while the storm begins to rage again. Cardillo convinces John that these paintings are decoys and that the real paintings are hidden in other apartments so they go to find them. Troy and Griffin leave to get medical help but are chased and shot at by a thief and take shelter in a basement apartment that is almost flooded to the ceiling. Troy dives down into the water to find an exit then comes back up to help Griffin through it. John gets taken to Griffin's apartment where there is a painting worth $200 million on the wall. John demands to be let into the locked room and is attacked and killed by Griffin's pet tiger as he is wearing a police uniform. Afterwards we see Griffin in the hospital with Troy as his doctor. Cardillo and Pena also visit Griffin during which Cardillo asks Troy out for a date and they leave Griffin with a painting.

Contribute to this page

• See more gaps
• Learn more about contributing

More from this title

More to explore, recently viewed.

Local arts needs local journalism. Donate to InReview today.

Film review: Force of Nature – The Dry 2

The screen adaptation of Jane Harper’s follow-up to her bestselling novel The Dry sees ­Detective Aaron Falk on the trail of a possible killer after a woman goes missing in dense Victorian bushland ­– but it’s the movie itself that ends up lost.

The Dry 2 is anything but. The perpetual damp of Victoria’s Otway Ranges and Dandenong rainforests makes for breathtaking Australian scenery but renders the life of the redoubtable detective Aaron Falk tougher than it already is.

The long-awaited sequel to The Dry , the smash-hit adaptation of Jane Harper’s first novel about federal investigator Falk (Eric Bana), will attract those who relished the original story of Falk’s return to his home town where he reconnected with the past to solve a decades-old murder.

Force of Nature looks magnificent and the sense of place from the location cinematography sets up an appropriate atmosphere of foreboding as Falk takes a panicked, broken call from Alice Russell (Anna Torv), who is one of his key informants. She is on a corporate getaway that includes younger colleagues and the boss’s wife, Jill Bailey (Deborra-Lee Furness). The group becomes lost and when they emerge, Alice is no longer with them.

We learn from Falk that Alice was caught borrowing money that was not hers, which gave him the leverage to recruit her as a whistleblower against her fraudulent boss, Daniel Bailey (Richard Roxburgh). Falk had been pressuring Alice to take risks and he fears it triggered reprisals.

It is a promising set-up with a likely murder at its core, and Bana and Torv are good actors who give it their best. But what a mess it is. Harper’s story is overly fussy and here we have three threads running in parallel: the real-time search for Alice, what transpired on some of the trek, and Falk’s flashbacks to the childhood trauma of losing his mother in the bushland. The accidental discovery of the den of a serial killer is a morbid embellishment that only adds to the confusion.

Director Robert Connolly, the experienced filmmaker who made The Dry , uses distracting, choppy edits that leap from one situation to another time and place before we have a chance to engage. It drains the film of dramatic tension because just as we find our feet, we lose them again.  Which is a shame, because actors Jacqueline McKenzie ( Palm Beach , Bloom ), as Falk’s sidekick Carmen Cooper, and Sisi Stringer ( Mortal Kombat ), as Beth, work hard to bring substance to their scenes.

Harper is the queen of the rural noir literary craze and she succeeded because readers were moved by Falk’s personal history while his adventures turned the page. Here, Falk appears emotionally removed and the lost-mother storyline a failed attempt to humanise him as he closes the net around Daniel Bailey, a one-dimensional baddie. By the time we get to who might want to kill Alice, there are so many candidates it is hard to care.

Get InReview in your inbox – free each Saturday. Local arts and culture – covered.

Thanks for signing up to the InReview newsletter.

In one piece of silliness that was an insult to the audience, Falk emerges soaking wet but otherwise untroubled after plunging down a torrential waterfall which we were told earlier by the Indigenous ranger no one could possibly survive. Not bad for an accountant.

Force of Nature: The Dry 2 is in cinemas now.

Support local arts journalism

Your support will help us continue the important work of InReview in publishing free professional journalism that celebrates, interrogates and amplifies arts and culture in South Australia.

You must attribute the author and note prominently that the article was originally published by InReview .   You must also inlude a link to InReview . Please note that images are not generally included in this creative commons licence as in most cases we are not the copyright owner. However, if the image has an InReview photographer credit or is marked as “supplied”, you are free to republish it with the appropriate credits.

We recommend you set the canonical link of this content to https://inreview.com.au/inreview/film/2024/02/08/film-review-force-of-nature-the-dry-2/ to insure that your SEO is not penalised.

This article is republished from InReview under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article .

InReview is an open access, non-profit arts and culture journalism project. Readers can support our work with a donation . Subscribe to InReview’s free weekly newsletter here .

Today's top stories

More Film & TV stories

Streaming picks: Carriage romps, comedy and crime

Film review: Upon Open Sky

The Eighties called - they want their movie back!

New film is a sunny account of the Beach Boys' surfin' safari

The West Australian

• Confidential
• Best Short Film
• Competitions

Force of Nature: The Dry is a moody mystery

The number of Australian movies that have had sequels made fits onto one Wikipedia page that doesn’t even necessitate a scroll down.

Which makes Force of Nature: The Dry 2 an outlier in our industry. Its existence speaks to The Dry’s resounding commercial success when it was released three years ago, taking in $20 million at the local box office.

It may have benefitted from a lack of competition as international studios held back releases because of covid closures, but the slick and suspenseful bush thriller also enjoyed tremendous word-of-mouth.

After an actors strike-related delay, the sequel is finally here. While it still carries the name The Dry (to ensure audiences don’t overlook its association to the original), there’s nothing arid about it. It could’ve been called Force of Nature: The Moist. Sorry. It is though, very wet.

Get in front of tomorrow's news for FREE

Journalism for the curious Australian across politics, business, culture and opinion.

Shot in Victoria’s Otways, Dandenong Ranges and Yarra Valley, Force of Nature, directed by Robert Connolly, has decamped from the barren lands of the first films to the rainforest, which gives the crime mystery a different sort of menacing vibe.

With potential human malice in the air, the soundscape of dripping water, crunching leaves and even the heavy flows of waterfalls and rivers is far from a relaxing audio sleep aid. Especially when you add in the foreboding score.

Eric Bana’s Detective Aaron Falk is now working in the financial crimes unit of the AFP. His investigation into a company’s books is reliant on inside information from one of its employees, Alice (Anna Torv). She’s not a willing participant, rather, Aaron and his partner Carmen (Jacqueline McKenzie) has pressured Alice under the threat of sending her to prison for theft.

Alarm bells ring when Alice disappears from a corporate retreat in the rainforest. She, her boss Jill (Deborra-Lee Furness) and colleagues Lauren (Robin McLeavy), Beth (Sisi Stringer) and Bree (Lucy Ansell), ventured into the woods but Alice did not come out.

Aaron and Carmen are part of the team investigating the vanishing, while a search team race against an impending storm that will make any chance of rescue impossible.

Force of Nature has three concurrent narratives. There’s the present-day investigation along with the flashbacks of what happened to the five women in their ill-fated trek, all the resentments, feuds and misadventures that befell them. They’re way out of their element and the merciless forest pushes everyone to the edge. But did it push any of them to commit a crime?

Add to that the spectre of a decades-old, unresolved serial killer case, a predator who snatched and kept his victims in this part of the world.

There are some suspend-your-disbelief contrivances, so let’s just get them out of the way. There is no way that any company would send five inexperienced hikers into the bush without a guide, a satellite phone, headlight torches, tracking devices or at least extra copies of the map. The legal liabilities would be unthinkable. You just have to get over it. Movies, right?

The film has to be applauded for putting on screen not one but several unlikeable female characters. Everyone is flawed and hiding something and Alice, in particular, is brusque, imperious and rude. It’s a bold choice to trust Torv to embody someone who is not traditionally a “worthy victim”, and have the confidence the audience will care if Alice survives.

There’s also a third plotline which flashes back to Aaron’s childhood, to an incident in which his mother disappeared during a family hiking trip in the same patch of rainforest. This wasn’t in Jane Harper’s book and gives Aaron another personal connection to the case.

It’s a smart choice because as a character, Aaron has to function as more than just an arm’s-length cop. The audience was asked to invest in his history and emotional state in the first film, so he has to be more than just a Poirot-type detective that flits from case to case.

It all makes for a moody, gripping and solid follow-up.

Rating: 3/5

Force of Nature: The Dry 2 is in cinemas from February 8 with previews this weekend

Your Local News

The Slasher Movie Reaches Disturbing New Heights

In a Violent Nature might seem like a purely aesthetic exercise. But its experimentation elevates an all-too-familiar genre.

Listen to this article

Produced by ElevenLabs and News Over Audio (NOA) using AI narration.

In a Violent Nature is a slasher film designed, as most slasher films are, to unsettle and distress. It follows a group of teenagers who unintentionally disturb a grave, awaken a monster, and then get hunted through the woods by this mute, superhuman creature. The plot is stubbornly formulaic. But its presentation is somewhat radical, to the extent that I feared I was settling in for the most terrifying movie experience of all: an empty genre exercise, one that’s more interested in style than in substance.

The writer-director Chris Nash runs the risk of seeming pretentiously self-aware in his feature debut, which is in theaters this week and is worth watching if you have a high enough tolerance for gore. In a Violent Nature is a horror film about the experience of watching a horror film; it prods the audience to consider the artificiality of genre classics such as Friday the 13th , which it is consciously aping and subverting. In almost every slasher, the camera tends to stick with the victims as they navigate frightening scenarios and are picked off by a mostly unseen villain. But In a Violent Nature is told from the point of view of the silent predator as he tromps around the Ontario wilderness in search of his next quarry.

The movie essentially raises the question: What is the killer doing for most of a slasher film’s running time? If you’re watching a Halloween or a Friday the 13th , in which the personality-free antagonist is more a force of nature than a scheming rogue, the murderer is on-screen for only a handful of minutes. Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees are nightmarish, but they’re not exactly leading men; the films they “star” in are always, by necessity, centered on the people they’re chasing. Nash starts things off differently, focusing on an old abandoned locket, the sort of detail many viewers might not notice. We then see a hand snatch the locket away, and it’s quickly clear that this action has disturbed a burial ground, because out of the earth pops a large, desiccated man named Johnny (played by Ry Barrett).

Read: How Wes Craven redefined horror

As in any such horror film, Johnny has plenty of overactive teenagers to stalk, and all seem to be wrapped up in the typical interpersonal dramas that define these stories. But the audience only overhears snippets of conversations, and has to guess at what flirtations or tensions might be motivating the campers to split off, go swimming, or do anything else that leaves them vulnerable. That’s because the viewer stays with Johnny, the camera usually hovering above his shoulder as he lurches through the trees. His movements seem almost aimless—until he crosses another teen’s path and we’re treated to a scene of involved and intense maiming.

The film most recalls Gus Van Sant’s meditative and upsetting 2003 film, Elephant , which presented a school shooting as an abstract visual exercise, following teenagers as they meander through hallways before the plot curdles into something deeply chilling. In Elephant , Van Sant was trying to unpack the mundanity of life, and how the routine can turn unthinkable in an instant. And although Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest took a different formal approach (using static, surveillance-like cameras to track the action), that film was similarly intent on creating a banal backdrop for brutality . In a Violent Nature is not nearly so heady, and is steeped in the silliness of slashers, which is why I was worried it would be undermined by its winking nature.

But despite the film’s knowing edge, it’s still really scary to follow a hooded, hook-wielding butcher through the woods, anticipating whatever round of chaos he is about to unleash next. In a Violent Nature judiciously spreads out its kills, but when they arrive, they are extremely nasty , achieved with impressive practical effects and a methodical, straightforward presentation. There are no quick cuts here, no goofy ways of hiding gore from the audience: Nash wants the viewer to engage with the pure terror of what’s going on just as much as he wants them to sit in the tedium of it. The result is a film as worthy as its predecessors—and one of the most unsettling examples of the genre I’ve seen in years.

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

• Upcoming Movies and TV shows
• Trivia & Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
• Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

Movies / TV

No results found.

• What's the Tomatometer®?
• Login/signup

Movies in theaters

• Opening this week
• Top box office
• Coming soon to theaters
• Certified fresh movies

Movies at home

• Fandango at Home
• Netflix streaming
• Prime Video
• Most popular streaming movies
• What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

• Hit Man Link to Hit Man
• Am I OK? Link to Am I OK?
• Jim Henson Idea Man Link to Jim Henson Idea Man

New TV Tonight

• The Boys: Season 4
• Bridgerton: Season 3
• Presumed Innocent: Season 1
• The Lazarus Project: Season 2
• The Big Bakeover: Season 1
• How Music Got Free: Season 1
• Love Island: Season 6

Most Popular TV on RT

• Star Wars: The Acolyte: Season 1
• Eric: Season 1
• House of the Dragon: Season 2
• Sweet Tooth: Season 3
• Evil: Season 4
• Dark Matter: Season 1
• Ren Faire: Season 1
• Tires: Season 1
• Star Wars: Ahsoka: Season 1
• Best TV Shows
• Most Popular TV
• TV & Streaming News

Certified fresh pick

• Star Wars: The Acolyte: Season 1 Link to Star Wars: The Acolyte: Season 1
• All-Time Lists
• Binge Guide
• Comics on TV
• Five Favorite Films
• Video Interviews
• Weekend Box Office
• Weekly Ketchup
• What to Watch

Glen Powell Movies Ranked by Tomatometer

Star Wars TV Shows Ranked by Tomatometer

What to Watch: In Theaters and On Streaming

Movie Re-Release Calendar 2024: Your Guide to Movies Back In Theaters

Vote For the Best Movie of 1999 – Round 4

• Trending on RT
• Netflix's Best Movies
• Vote: 1999 Movie Showdown

Force of Nature: The Dry 2

Where to watch.

Rent Force of Nature: The Dry 2 on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, or buy it on Fandango at Home, Prime Video.

What to Know

Generally absorbing from moment to moment despite uneven pacing and a rather convoluted mystery, Force of Nature: The Dry 2 should satisfy fans of the first installment while setting up the third.

Critics Reviews

Audience reviews, cast & crew.

Robert Connolly

Deborra-Lee Furness

Robin McLeavy

Sisi Stringer

More Like This

Common Sense Media

Movie & TV reviews for parents

• For Parents
• For Educators
• Our Work and Impact

Or browse by category:

• Get the app
• Movie Reviews
• Best Movie Lists
• Best Movies on Netflix, Disney+, and More

Common Sense Selections for Movies

50 Modern Movies All Kids Should Watch Before They're 12

• Best TV Lists
• Best TV Shows on Netflix, Disney+, and More
• Common Sense Selections for TV
• Video Reviews of TV Shows

Best Kids' Shows on Disney+

Best Kids' TV Shows on Netflix

• Book Reviews
• Best Book Lists
• Common Sense Selections for Books

8 Tips for Getting Kids Hooked on Books

50 Books All Kids Should Read Before They're 12

• Game Reviews
• Best Game Lists

Common Sense Selections for Games

• Video Reviews of Games

Nintendo Switch Games for Family Fun

• Podcast Reviews
• Best Podcast Lists

Common Sense Selections for Podcasts

Parents' Guide to Podcasts

• App Reviews
• Best App Lists

Social Networking for Teens

Gun-Free Action Game Apps

Reviews for AI Apps and Tools

• YouTube Channel Reviews
• YouTube Kids Channels by Topic

Parents' Ultimate Guide to YouTube Kids

YouTube Kids Channels for Gamers

• Preschoolers (2-4)
• Little Kids (5-7)
• Big Kids (8-9)
• Pre-Teens (10-12)
• Teens (13+)
• Screen Time
• Social Media
• Online Safety
• Identity and Community

Screen-Free Activities for Kids and Teens to Enjoy Over the Summer

• Family Tech Planners
• Digital Skills
• All Articles
• Latino Culture
• Black Voices
• Asian Stories
• Native Narratives
• LGBTQ+ Pride
• Best of Diverse Representation List

Multicultural Books

YouTube Channels with Diverse Representations

Podcasts with Diverse Characters and Stories

In a violent nature, common sense media reviewers.

Intensely gory, but also unique, thoughtful slasher movie.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Seems to be prompting viewers to ask questions abo

No clear role models, with possible exception of t

As part of the film's concept/approach, human char

Incredibly gory, brutal slashings and slayings, wi

Two characters flirt, with suggestion of meeting u

Very strong language includes "f--k," "s--t," "c--

Campers drink beer and smoke pot in a social setti

Parents need to know that In a Violent Nature is an extremely gory slasher/horror movie that purposely and thoughtfully raises questions about the genre. Characters are killed in incredibly gruesome, over-the-top ways. For example, a person's stomach is slashed, and then her head is pulled with a hook and…

Positive Messages

Seems to be prompting viewers to ask questions about violent slasher movies in particular—and violence in general—by putting a slightly different perspective on familiar events. The title could refer to a person with a "violent nature" or even violence in nature itself.

Positive Role Models

No clear role models, with possible exception of the unnamed good samaritan who tries to help one victim. But, in general, characters are deliberately one-dimensional and designed as victims.

Diverse Representations

As part of the film's concept/approach, human characters are deliberately not very well rounded, adhering mostly to specific "types" within the horror genre and remaining largely in the background. All present as White (as does the writer-director), which could be seen as part of the film's commentary on the horror genre. A storyteller tries to refer to a person as "slow" and "mentally hindered" without using a more offensive term.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

Incredibly gory, brutal slashings and slayings, with tons of blood: spurts, wounds, etc. A character is killed by a hook and chain stabbed through stomach; her killer latches the hook to her head and pulls until her head passes through her body cavity. He then kicks the corpse down a large hill. Another character is killed via an ax to face and then repeatedly bashed until his top half turns into a pile of gore. Killer chops off a character's arm with a log-splitter, then chops off their head. Character's head bashed in with rock. Person killed while swimming; she's yanked underwater, and her corpse floats. Decapitation, with killer dragging the headless corpse and tossing body parts through windows to break them. Ax to head, leg. Character caught in a bear trap, leading to a severed arm and gory corpse. Someone trips in woods, a branch ramming through her lower leg. Guns and shooting, with the killer shot several times (he's knocked down but soon gets back up again). Gory animal corpses caught in bear traps. Violent stories recounted. Some gross/scatological dialogue.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Two characters flirt, with suggestion of meeting up for sex (which is interrupted by the killer). Sex-related dialogue. A woman undresses in front of a window; when she gets to her bra, she closes the drapes.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Very strong language includes "f--k," "s--t," "c--k," "motherf----r," "bulls--t," "a--hole," "goddamn," "son of a bitch," "d--k," "crap," "Jesus" (as an exclamation), "Jesus f---in' Christ," "pedo."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Campers drink beer and smoke pot in a social setting. Dialogue about characters drinking and getting drunk.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that In a Violent Nature is an extremely gory slasher/horror movie that purposely and thoughtfully raises questions about the genre. Characters are killed in incredibly gruesome, over-the-top ways. For example, a person's stomach is slashed, and then her head is pulled with a hook and chain until it pokes through her body cavity. Expect beheadings and severed limbs, and a character's head is repeatedly hacked at with an ax (only a pile of gore eventually remains). There are also other ax attacks, bloody wounds, corpses, guns and shooting, animal corpses, and more. Characters flirt, and there's sex-related dialogue, as well as lots of swearing, including "f--k," "s--t," "c--k," "motherf----r," "bulls--t," "a--hole," "goddamn," "son of a bitch," "d--k," "Jesus" (as an exclamation), and more. Characters drink beer and smoke pot in a social setting. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Community Reviews

• Parents say (3)

Based on 3 parent reviews

THIS is not a movie worth watching

What's the story.

In IN A VIOLENT NATURE, a group of friends is camping in the woods. Some of them stumble on an old fire tower and discover a locket. Thinking it may be valuable, one of them takes it. It's not long before a vicious undead killer known as Johnny crawls from his earthly resting place below the tower to begin a new series of slashings.

Is It Any Good?

This mesmerizing, deliberately paced horror/slasher movie may not scare traditional horror fans, but its unique rhythms and compositions ask fresh, intriguing questions about the bloody genre. The feature writing and directing debut of Chris Nash, who contributed a short to the 2014 ABCs of Death 2 anthology movie, In a Violent Nature is closer to something like Gus Van Sant's Elephant than it is to Friday the 13th Part 2 (though Lauren-Marie Taylor, who appeared in that 1981 slasher classic, shows up here as a good samaritan). Shot in the narrow Academy aspect ratio of 1.37:1, much of the movie takes place from the point of view of the supernatural killer as he stalks endlessly through the woods. There's no music score, so the sounds of thunking footsteps and the swishing of bushes and branches moving aside (and sometimes engines and other unsettling sounds) act as music.

Until the story gets down to the "final girl," we rarely see non-monster characters in close-up or even at all; they're frequently off-camera or out-of-focus and in the distance. Some of the kills—such as two flirtatious campers next to a lake—seem familiar in concept, but in execution, they're drastically different. And a nail-biting final sequence will likely enthrall, irritate, or confuse most viewers. It seems as if Nash wants viewers to ponder what they're watching here and why—and what could possibly be the appeal of slasher movies. Or, perhaps, to go one step further, maybe it's "nature" itself that's a threat. Regardless, In a Violent Nature is a brilliant movie that's worth seeing more than once for further unpacking.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about In a Violent Nature 's violence . How did it make you feel? Was it exciting? Shocking? What did the movie show or not show to achieve this effect? Why is that important?

Is the movie scary? What's the appeal of horror movies ? Why do people sometimes like to be scared?

What are the movie's themes? What is it trying to say about the slasher genre? How is it using the slasher genre to comment on violence more generally?

What do you think the movie's title means? Does "nature" refer to a person's nature or to "Mother Nature"? Or both?

Movie Details

• In theaters : May 31, 2024
• Cast : Ry Barrett , Andrea Pavlovic , Cameron Love
• Director : Chris Nash
• Studios : IFC Films , Shudder
• Genre : Horror
• Run time : 94 minutes
• MPAA rating : NR
• Last updated : June 1, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

Suggest an Update

Our editors recommend.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

The Cabin in the Woods

Best horror movies, scary movies for kids.

Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.

'In a Violent Nature' Review: Eat Your Heart Out, Jason Voorhees

Your changes have been saved

Email Is sent

Please verify your email address.

You’ve reached your account maximum for followed topics.

The Big Picture

• In a Violent Nature is a unique and gruesome horror film.
• The film's formal approach and creative kills set it apart, with a focus on the killer and visceral moments.
• While it may be exhausting for some, those seeking hyper-violent horror will find it to be a bold and bloody ride.

This review was originally part of our coverage of the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.

You’ve never seen a horror film like writer-director Chris Nash’s In a Violent Nature . While it perhaps shares an eventually similar sense of madcap energy to other recent Shudder offerings like When Evil Lurks , its unique formal approach and gruesome kills put it in a class all its own. Where 2023 was a strong one for festival horror emerging as the year's best , with everything from birth/rebirth to Talk to Me leaving their mark on the genre long after their Sundance premieres, 2024 now has an early contender of its own with In a Violent Nature .

In a Violent Nature

The horror movie tracks a ravenous zombie creature as it makes its way through a secluded forest.

What Is 'In a Violent Nature' About?

The film opens with an extended shot of a pendant hanging from a pipe of some kind long consumed by rust in the middle of a dilapidated structure in the woods. It is the peaceful quiet before the bloody storm that is coming. We hear voices talking about inane nonsense before a hand reaches in and grabs the pendant. Big mistake. The voices wander away, though a rumbling begins to grow louder and louder under the ground before a hand bursts through. This is Johnny, embodied magnificently by actor Ry Barrett , a killing machine who has been awakened and is now about to tear through any who are unlucky enough to cross his path. Like Jason Vorhees of the Friday the 13th series, though somehow much meaner and smarter, he wanders methodically through the remote area, accumulating weapons that he’ll soon put to bloody use . His main targets end up being, of course, a group of unwitting horny and drunken teens whose vacation is soon to become an unrelenting nightmare.

In case it wasn’t already clear, In a Violent Nature is a slasher film in an almost classical sense . Everything plays out just as expected, with what feels like a bounty of references from Halloween to My Bloody Valentine and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre , with a few stumbles near the end. What makes it all hold together even as its characters come apart in bloody pieces is Nash’s commitment to a terrifyingly effective formal approach where we are almost always with the killer himself. Similar in some regards to Steven Soderbergh ’s Presence , even as that remains 100 percent committed to its POV where this switches it up a couple times, it is not about the material as much it is the method of conveying it. Save for some occasionally clunky dialogue that is used to fill in the gaps, which you forgive as almost part of a grand joke, considering how quickly those speaking it get killed, we are almost always with Johnny just unleashing havoc. The kills in this film are some of the most bonkers, bloody, and brutal you’ll ever see. It’s the type of film where you’ll go “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a decapitated head do that before” in both awe and terror. Some of it could seem disposable if you just read a synopsis, but it is the visceral approach that makes it a cut above. Just when you think it's run out of ways to obliterate the characters, it outdoes itself again with fearsome flair.

There is a good chance this could become exhausting to those less interested in hyper-violent horror where the gore is the main draw. However, for those who are looking for something that really pushes itself to bloody new heights, this is a full horror meal worth chowing down on. The narrative might not have much meat on the bone, but the rest of the film is never lacking for moments that get right up into the guts of its potential. There is one character who emerges as a protagonist of sorts in Kris, played by Andrea Pavlovic who has a strong commanding presence when the film needs her to, though she is an outlier. Most everyone else will show up just long enough to be killed. There are moments where it can show more restraint, like one killing in the water where we are tensely waiting in agony for the moment where Johnny will strike. When he does, the most chilling part is how quick and almost completely silent it all is, save for a few screams that are swallowed up by the uncaring sounds of nature echoing through the forest. Nash knows when to be bombastic and when to balance it with a lighter touch, ensuring each cuts deeper. It is grimly funny at times, though no less terrifying because of it. Everything compliments itself as we observe the beautiful forest being made into a hunting ground where there is nowhere you are safe for long .

'In a Violent Nature' Is a Bold and Bloody Ride

Though the ending is a little less confident than all that preceded it, lacking patience and spelling things out a bit too much when Pavlovic already speaks volumes with her focused performance, the overall ride is an enthralling one . The final shots leave a lingering sense of dread that is built upon the foundation that was built from the stacked bodies Johnny accumulated. In many regards, he is the star of the show, with one scene where we finally see his face while characters speculate far out of frame about his origins hammering this home. He never smiles for his closeup, but one can’t help grinning all the way through this gruesome horror picture with its delightfully audacious approach. Jason Voorhees better watch his back.

The latest from Shudder gives new life to the slasher film as writer-director Chris Nash leaves his own distinct mark on the horror genre.

• The film's formal conceit is terrifyingly executed and often grimly funny.
• It strikes a balance between bombast and a lighter touch, with each complimenting the other perfectly.
• Ry Barrett embodies the killer magnificently and Andrea Pavlovic gives the closest person we have to a protagonist some weight in her performance.
• The ending spells things out a bit too much, proving to be not quite as confident and patient as all the preceded it.

In a Violent Nature comes to theaters in the U.S. starting May 31. Click below for showtimes near you.

GET TICKETS

• Movie Reviews

May 30, 2024

A general passion

Image credit: pgen.1011291

research article

Conserved signalling functions for Mps1, Mad1 and Mad2 in the Cryptococcus neoformans spindle checkpoint

Mps1-dependent phosphorylation of C-terminal Mad1 residues is a critical step in Cryptococcus spindle checkpoint signalling. 

Image credit: pgen.1011302

Recently Published Articles

• A systematic screen identifies Saf5 as a link between splicing and transcription in fission yeast
• Anopheles gambiae : Insight into the cellular dynamics of a novel synthetic sex ratio distorter">Y chromosome shredding in Anopheles gambiae : Insight into the cellular dynamics of a novel synthetic sex ratio distorter
• MLL-ENL and MLL-AF9 Induces cdk9 and bcl2 Expression in Zebrafish Embryos">Myeloid Targeted Human MLL-ENL and MLL-AF9 Induces cdk9 and bcl2 Expression in Zebrafish Embryos

Current Issue May 2024

Adaptations to nitrogen availability drive ecological divergence of chemosynthetic symbionts

The importance of nitrogen availability in driving the ecological diversification of chemosynthetic symbiont species and the role that bacterial symbionts may play in the adaptation of marine organisms to changing environmental conditions.

Image credit: pgen.1011295

Paramutation at the maize pl1 locus is associated with RdDM activity at distal tandem repeats

pl1 paramutation depends on trans-chromosomal RNA-directed DNA methylation operating at a discrete cis-linked and copy-number-dependent transcriptional regulatory element.

Image credit: pgen.1011296

Research Article

Genomic analyses of Symbiomonas scintillans show no evidence for endosymbiotic bacteria but does reveal the presence of giant viruses

A multi-gene tree showed the three SsV genome types branched within highly supported clades with each of BpV2, OlVs, and MpVs, respectively.

Image credit: pgen.1011218

A natural bacterial pathogen of C . elegans uses a small RNA to induce transgenerational inheritance of learned avoidance

A mechanism of learning and remembering pathogen avoidance likely happens in the wild. 

Image credit: pgen.1011178

Spoink , a LTR retrotransposon, invaded D. melanogaster populations in the 1990s

Evidence of Spoink retrotransposon's horizontal transfer into D. melanogaster populations post-1993, suggesting its origin from D.willistoni .

Image credit: pgen.1011201

Comparison of clinical geneticist and computer visual attention in assessing genetic conditions

Understanding AI, specifically Deep Learning, in facial diagnostics for genetic conditions can enhance the design and utilization of AI tools.

Image credit: pgen.1011168

Maintenance of proteostasis by Drosophila Rer1 is essential for competitive cell survival and Myc-driven overgrowth

Loss of Rer1 induces proteotoxic stress, leading to cell competition and elimination ...

Image credit: pgen.1011171

Anthracyclines induce cardiotoxicity through a shared gene expression response signature

TOP2i induce thousands of shared gene expression changes in cardiomyocytes.

Image credit: pgen.1011164

New PLOS journals accepting submissions

Five new journals unified in addressing global health and environmental challenges are now ready to receive submissions: PLOS Climate , PLOS Sustainability and Transformation , PLOS Water , PLOS Digital Health , and PLOS Global Public Health

COVID-19 Collection

The COVID-19 Collection highlights all content published across the PLOS journals relating to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Submit your Lab and Study Protocols to PLOS ONE !

PLOS ONE is now accepting submissions of Lab Protocols, a peer-reviewed article collaboration with protocols.io, and Study Protocols, an article that credits the work done prior to producing and publishing results.

PLOS Reviewer Center

A collection of free training and resources for peer reviewers of PLOS journals—and for the peer review community more broadly—drawn from research and interviews with staff editors, editorial board members, and experienced reviewers.

Ten Simple Rules

PLOS Computational Biology 's "Ten Simple Rules" articles provide quick, concentrated guides for mastering some of the professional challenges research scientists face in their careers.

Welcome New Associate Editors!

PLOS Genetics welcomes several new Associate Editors to our board: Nicolas Bierne, Julie Simpson, Yun Li, Hongbin Ji, Hongbing Zhang, Bertrand Servin, & Benjamin Schwessinger

Expanding human variation at PLOS Genetics

The former Natural Variation section at PLOS Genetics relaunches as Human Genetic Variation and Disease. Read the editors' reasoning behind this change.

PLOS Genetics welcomes new Section Editors

Quanjiang Ji (ShanghaiTech University) joined the editorial board and Xiaofeng Zhu (Case Western Reserve University) was promoted as new Section Editors for the PLOS Genetics Methods section.

PLOS Genetics editors elected to National Academy of Sciences

Congratulations to Associate Editor Michael Lichten and Consulting Editor Nicole King, who are newly elected members of the National Academy of Sciences.

Harmit Malik receives Novitski Prize

Congratulations to Associate Editor Harmit Malik, who was awarded the Edward Novitski Prize by the Genetics Society of America for his work on genetic conflict. Harmit has also been elected as a new member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

Publish with PLOS

• Submission Instructions
• Submit Your Manuscript

Connect with Us

• PLOS Genetics on Twitter
• PLOS on Facebook

Get new content from PLOS Genetics in your inbox

Thank you you have successfully subscribed to the plos genetics newsletter., sorry, an error occurred while sending your subscription. please try again later..