No wonder Randy Quaid and his wife are in Canada seeking asylum, purportedly fearful of coming to a unfortunately violent end-of-life, pursued hotly by Hollywood "death squads". They're likely to have been negatively impressed by the film he made about a town under siege by nature through immense flooding caused by torrential rain.

The film, "Hard Rain", is one we viewed last night. Gripping, intense, but rather absurd as well in the context of the story plot of a determined gangster with a heart of gold intent on leading his gang to rob an armoured truck carrying $3-million from a recent pick-up in the flooded town.

What adequately explains the presence of Morgan Freeman and Minnie Driver in this hard-boiled send-up is a little harder to discern. It had its moments, overshadowed mightily by Hollywood's love affair with car chases, translated in this film to motorboat chases and dangers lurking in volatile floating debris, culminating with the thrills inherent for some in watching at a remove, extremely violent action and accompanying deaths.

Topical, in a sense, given what's happening right now in a dreadfully tragic way with the swollen Souris River (funny that; the Yiddish word for trouble happens to be "tsouris") threatening towns in North Dakota, along with residents losing all their life-time material goods to the inundating floods, in Souris, Manitoba. The premier of Manitoba need make no apology for having to call in Canadian troops in a desperate attempt to shore up the town's defences against the rampaging waters.

CFB Shilo based soldiers place sandbags in Souris, Man. on Saturday July 2, 2011. (Province of Manitoba-HO / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

That's the reality of a catastrophic natural event that Hollywood has twisted into a cops-and-robbers-chase when the authorities turn out to be no more morally constrained than the law-breakers.