Force of Nature (2020 film)

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 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 Peña (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 into a fight with another customer who wants to purchase meat. Cardillo and Peña 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 a yelling argument. Cardillo takes Troy downstairs to the old man's apartment, and finds out that his name is Paul Bergkamp who also refuses to leave his home. Peña 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 so 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.

Peña, unaware of the thieves' presence, walks into the hallway. 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.

Peña 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 4 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 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 Peña 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 Peña. 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 Peña to the weapons filled apartment and demands to know where Cardillo and Bergkamp are. John reveals that the original Vincent van Gogh painting, Poppy Flowers, 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 Peña, not to call for backup and demands Bergkamp and the painting. Cardillo agrees to bring Bergkamp to them so they will release Peña. 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 into 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. They 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.

• Emile Hirsch as Cardillo
• Mel Gibson as Ray Barrett
• Kate Bosworth as Troy Barrett
• Stephanie Cayo as Jess Peña
• David Zayas as John the Baptist
• Jasper Polish as Jasmine
• Will Catlett as Griffin
• Swen Temmel as Hodges
• Tyler Jon Olson as Dillon
• Jorge Luis Ramos as Bergkamp

In May 2019, Kate Bosworth and Mel Gibson were announced to star in the film, with Michael Polish directing from a screenplay by Cory Miller.[3] Further cast announcements occurred from June to September: Emile Hirsch,[4] Stephanie Cayo,[5] David Zayas,[6] and Jasper Polish.[7] Principal photography began in July 2019 in Miramar and Guaynabo, Puerto Rico. The budget was $23 million, with about $15 million spent on-location.[1]

In April 2020, Lionsgate acquired distribution rights to the film.[8] Force of Nature was released in the United States by Lionsgate Films on digital, DVD, and Blu-ray Disc on June 30, 2020.[9][10][11]

The film was also theatrically released in several overseas countries, including Vietnam, where it debuted to $21,117.[2]

• Force of Nature on IMDb