History Film / ForceOfNature

''Force of Nature'' is a 2020 action movie directed by Creator/MichaelPolish and starring Creator/EmileHirsch, Creator/KateBosworth, Creator/MelGibson, Creator/StephanieCayo and Creator/DavidZayas. A mixture of disaster movies and the DieHardOnAnX sub-genre of action thrillers, the movie is about an art heist in an apartment complex in San Juan, Puerto Rico, while a category-5 hurricane is ravaging through the island.

* AwesomeButImpractical: The heisters pack high-calibre assault rifles, many of them sporting high-magnification optics. They are definitely CoolGuns - and the type of weapons you would definitely not pick for a job that involves raiding a building with narrow corridors and other tight spaces, where they seriously hinder movement. Pistols, sub-machineguns and other compact weapons would have been a much more useful for the job at hand.

* ArmorIsUseless: Ray is the only one in the whole movie to wear a bulletproof vest. [[spoiler: He's also the only one of the protagonists, as he's hit repeatedly in body parts not protected by the vest, a fact even he [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] as he dies]].
* ArtisticLicenseLaw: The last line of the film. [[spoiler:If the paintings which have been "in [Paul's] family since the war" were stolen by the Nazis, Griffin will ''definitely'' have trouble selling the painting, or even keeping it, without some serious legal complications.]]

* BatDeduction: Griffin pulls this on Paul [[spoiler:because of course AllGermansAreNazis.]]

Compare with Film/HardRain and ''The Hurricane Heist'', two DieHardOnAnX action flicks that also revolve around robberies under the cover of a storm.

* AmbiguousSyntax: Griffin repeatedly asks for the "bowl of food", but ''means'' "giant pot of meat"

* ArmorIsUseless: Ray is the only one in the whole movie to wear a bulletproof vest. [[spoiler: That said, he's also the only one who dies by getting riddled with bullets. Justified, as he's hit exclusively at body parts not protected by the vest, a fact even he [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] as he dies]].
* ATeamFiring: With the exception of Ray, everyone who shoots a gun in this movie plays this trope straight. Justified in most cases: most firefights take place in dark interiors or heavy rain (both impairing visibility), while Troy is a doctor without proper weapons training.

* AwesomeButImpractical: The heisters pack high-calibre assault rifles, many of them sporting high-magnification optics. They are definitely CoolGuns - and the type of weapons you would definitely not pick for a job that involves raiding a building with narrow corridors and other tight spaces, where they seriously hinder movement. Pistols, sub-machineguns and other compact weapons would have been a much more logical choice for the crew to pick for the job.

* BatDeduction: Griffin pulls this on Paul when he deduces correctly that[[spoiler: he's a former Nazi war criminal - based only on his German accent]].

* BottomlessMagazines: Strangely averted, despite the genre.

* BlindedByTheLight: Ray employs this trick when a {{Mook}} gets the drop on him and Jess in the arsenal room.

* CopHater: Griffin [[{{Understatement}} doesn't like cops]], so much so that he trained his "pet" cougar, Janet, to attack uniformed officers on sight. [[spoiler: Turns out the reason of this is that he's been a victim of racial profiling far too often, the last one ending with him getting beaten unconscious by overzealous cops.]] He befriends Cardillo and Jess by the end of the movie, though.

* DidntThinkThisThrough: John The Baptist has this at the end of the film to end the film, as he is tricked into opening a heavily locked door without considering that priceless art doesn't exactly need security locks to prevent it from getting out of a room, as Janet's room does.
* DressingAsTheEnemy: Seeing the cops' police van outside, John gets the keys from Cardillo, then has Cardillo take off his uniform and give it to him, so that he can dress up as a cop and flee undetected.[[spoiler: This ends pretty bad for him, as Cardillo then promptly tricks him to go to Griffin's apartment where Janet is locked away.]]
* EagerRookie: Jess works hard to make an impression for her superiors, so that she can transfer to a "more exciting" department. Once she learns that Ray worked at a notorious precinct of San Juan, she tries convincing him to put in a good word for her there. Of course Ray gets quickly annoyed by this.

* FluffyTheTerrible: You would think that someone called "John the Baptist" would rather not [[WouldHitAGirl rough up a young policewoman handcuffed to a chair]], kill unarmed civilians without remorse, or execute his own accomplices without hesitation once they proved to be a liability. You're wrong.

** Griffin would probably not have been maimed by Janet if Cardillo, Troy or Paul take the pot of meat to him, as he repeatedly (and urgently) requested.

** Once John has both Cardillo and Jess disarmed and at gunpoint, he kills both of them along with Paul to tie up all loose ends. Nah, of course ILied. For some [[PlotArmor unexplained reason]], he only kills Paul (the only person who could pose absolutely ''no'' risk to him), and then have the cops collect the paintings for him. You know, instead of getting rid of them either by bullets, or by tying up and locking them away somewhere.
** As John takes Cardillo's police uniform, and prepares to shoot him, Cardillo suddenly suggests John that the stash they found may be just a diversion, and that the real paintings are HiddenInPlainSight in other apartments. Despite the fact that John is supposedly an experienced art heister, he buys Cardillo's theory, and doesn't occur to him that he may just simply try to save time.

* ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy: Although Roy was a cop, his daughter Troy never had any firearms training. Consequently, she [[AccidentalAimingSkills accidentally hits Cardillo as well]] when shooting the {{Mook}} beating him down. Later, she empties almost the whole magazine of her handgun at the {{Mook}} guarding the apartment complex entrance - without hitting him even once.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Ray is an old, grumpy, sexist cop who (seemingly) doesn't think much of Troy and Jess, throwing insults rapidly at both of them. That said, he makes up for his offensive remarks with Jess soon enough once they need to rely on each other, and also reconciles with his daughter[[spoiler: before dying]].
* KickTheDog: John kills several civilians during the course of the movie once they served their purpose, and he also doesn't have any problem killing off his accomplices if they are considered a liability.

* MercyKill: Played with. When Cardillo wounds one of John's henchmen, John swiftly puts the guy out of his misery. However, John is already established as a dangerous psychopath by that point who has no problems killing his own men too if they let him down, making the mercy kill also a case of BadBoss behaviour.
* MinorCrimeRevealsMajorPlot: How Cardillo and Jess ends up in the middle of the heist. Originally, the duo responded only to a supermarket's 9-1-1 call where Griffin got into a fight with a customer for buying most of the meat shelf for himself (or technically, for Janet). They end up at the apartment complex where Griffin lives (and targeted by the art thieves) only because Griffin - keen to avoid arrest and feed Janet - tells them that a retired cop also lives there, and may need evacuation.

* NiceGirl: Jess, who is enthusiastic about her evacuation assigment, and tries to prove her worth as a symphatetic, by-the-book cop. She gets more than what she bargained for when the [[{{Mook}} Mooks]] raid the apartment complex.

* ObscuredSpecialEffects: We never see Janet over almost the entire film. We're not even told exactly what kind of large cat she is. At TheReveal, it's a very short, poorly lit scene which immediately does a FadeToBlack.

* OneManArmy: Strangely, the movie plays this straight with the antagonists only.
** The first {{Mook}} Cardillo and Troy encounter beats both of them down, and only gets killed because he decides to try stomping Troy to death (preceded by a DramaticPause) instead of [[VillainBall going back to his rifle and promptly finish them off with it]].
** Ray and Jess also get attacked by a single {{Mook}} in the ex-DEA agent's apartment, and the two of them are almost overpowered single-handedly.

* PutDownYourGunAndStepAway: One of the [[{{Mook}} Mooks]] plays this on Cardillo, who complies. Since the goon is [[VillainBall holding his rifle very close to Cardillo's head with one hand]], some GoodOldFisticuffs ensue immediately afterwards.
* TheRadioDiesFirst: Once the hurricane reaches San Juan, it knocks out Cardillo's and Jess' radio, conveniently trapping them in the apartment complex without any means of calling for backup. The apartments they visit also have no landline phones installed, as they mention.
* RewatchBonus: When Jess is looking for Ray's bathroom to get his medication, Ray tells her to take the door on the right, as the one on the left contains his wife's art gallery. [[spoiler: It actually contains Paul's inherited art, the paintings the robbers are after.]]
* {{Safecracking}}: One of the goons does this throughout the majority of the movie.[[spoiler: It turns out that the safe was a ruse though, and is empty.]]
* ShootingGallery: According to Troy, Ray did this at home in a very strange way: he bought frozen turkeys every Thanksgiving, and then shot them up for target practice. The young Troy was also excited for this, though not because of the shooting, but rather because she wanted to be a doctor, and therefore could practice removing the bullets and stitching up the turkeys afterwards.

* TrailersAlwaysLie: Similarly to the cover art, the official trailer makes Mel Gibson's Ray appear as one of the main protagonists of the movie. The plot actually focuses on Creator/EmileHirsch's and Creator/KateBosworth's characters.

* CoolGuns: Ray and Jess improve their arsenal in the apartment of an ex-DEA agent, who amassed an arsenal of pistols, sub-machineguns, shotguns and assault rifles. [[spoiler: They can't put them to good use, though.]]
** The heist gang is also fitted with high-caliber rifles customized with lots of attachments. They all look cool, albeit [[AwesomeButImpractical quite impractical for the tight spaces of the apartment complex]].

* HurtingHero: Cardillo suffers from this throughout the majority of the movie. He gets through it once things start developing between him and Troy.

Should not be confused with [[RomanticComedy romcom]]''Film/ForcesOfNature''

* TheLoad: Paul and Griffin are pretty much this. Paul only serves as the LivingMacGuffin of the movie,[[spoiler: owning the paintings the robbers are after]], but not doing anything worthwhile other than keeping up with Cardillo and putting some pressure on Griffin's wounded leg. Griffin, on the other hand, is just one of the plot devices that separates Cardillo and Troy from Ray and Jess (the former duo decides to get medical supplies to treat his leg wound), and mostly exists to provide the ChekhovsGun[[spoiler: that is used to take out John]].
* TheRadioDiesFirst: Once the hurricane reaches San Juan, it knocks out Cardillo's and Jess' radio, conveniently trapping them in the apartment complex without any means of calling for backup. The apartments they visit also have no landline phones installed, as they mention.

* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: John also has no problem killing off any civilians [[BadBoss or even his own associates]] if he has no further use of them.

* RealityEnsues: Although Roy was a cop, his daughter Troy never had any firearms training. Consequently, she [[FriendlyFireIndex accidentally hits Cardillo as well]] when shooting the {{Mook}} beating him down. Later, she empties almost the whole magazine of her handgun at the {{Mook}} guarding the apartment complex entrance - without hitting him even once.

* ChekovsGun: Or rather animal in this case. [[spoiler: Griffin trained his cougar, Janet, to attack uniformed cops on sight. Cardillo remembers this, and promptly lures John to the predator once he takes his police uniform to escape undetected.]]