WATERPROOF -- Barry Berman, dir

©1999
studio: Sony Pictures
production company: Cape Fear Pictures
dir: Barry Berman
screenplay: Barry Berman
cast: Burt Reynolds, April Grace, Jan'net Dubois, Anthony Lee, Whitman Mayo, Orlando Jones, Cordereau Dye, Brandon Crawford

Shot by a child in a robbery attempt, shopkeeper Eli Zeal is kidnapped by the child's mother and brought to a rural black community in the South where the mother comes to grips with her own past.

While I agree with the idea that Hollywood needs more films that aren't all action-based, a film still needs good writing, and this just doesn't have it.

Zeal's presence in the South serves no real purpose, it seems, other than as a catalyst for getting Tyree back home. Why is Tyree back home, after running away 15 years ago? Is it to hide or protect her son, or is it for her own redemption? Both choices would be okay, but neither is fully explored.

The whole idea that Tyree has a hidden secret for which she needs redeption absolutely MUST be hinted at much sooner in the film. As it is, we don't know her secret until quite late in the film, and even at that, it is in a scene of exposition, rather than coming out in bits and pieces and letting us put the puzzle together.
I also didn't understand that Tyree needed to be baptised for her to get some redemption. Again, the whole idea of the Church playing a major role in her (and her son's) redemption didn't come in to play until quite late in the movie.

And...once Tyree has gotten home, the whole idea that she is trying to protect her son and to raise him properly is completely forgotten. When the son skips school and steals a bike, no one seems to react at all (other than that the boy's uncle gets him drunk).

Great performances save this movie, but a meandering script will sadly keep this film in obscurity.