Rainbow Drive

Rainbow Drive is a 1990 American made-for-television thriller film directed by Bobby Roth and starring Peter Weller, Sela Ward and David Caruso. The film first aired on September 8, 1990, on the Showtime Cable Network. It is based on the 1986 novel of the same name by Roderick Thorp.

Rainbow Drive
Poster and VHS cover of "Rainbow Drive"
Genre	Thriller
Based on	Rainbow Drive by Roderick Thorp
Teleplay by	Bill Phillips Bennett Cohen
Directed by	Bobby Roth
Starring	Peter Weller Sela Ward David Caruso Tony Jay
Theme music composer	Tangerine Dream
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
Production
Executive producer	Michael Viner
Producer	John Veitch
Cinematography	Tim Suhrstedt
Editor	Henk Van Eeghen
Running time	100 minutes
Production companies	Dove International ITC Entertainment Viacom Productions
Original release
Network	Showtime
Release	September 8, 1990 (1990-09-08)

Rainbow Drive was given a very limited theatrical release.^[1] It was released in America and the UK on VHS.^[2][3] The film was nominated for one Mystfest award, for "Best Film" (Bobby Roth).^[4] The soundtrack was scored by Tangerine Dream, but was never released as a stand-alone release. The title track was later included on the bootleg Prayer of Quiet Dreams in 1993.^[5]

Plot

Mike Gallagher is one of Los Angeles' top cops, who is acting head of Hollywood's homicide division. But Gallagher is soon wrenched out of his orderly existence into a dirty world of killing and corruption. Gallagher's affair with a married woman leads him to stumble across a vicious scene of multiple murders on L.A. highway Rainbow Drive. Gallagher senses something strange when reinforcements arrive even before he has called them. When his superiors freeze him out of the case, Gallagher begins his own investigation. With the help of mysterious ally Laura Demming, Gallagher draws closer to the truth, and danger moves closer to his partner and mistress. His investigation propels him into a web of drugs and vice, corruption and cover-up - an intricate web that implicates some of the city's most senior figures.

Cast

• Peter Weller as Mike Gallagher
• Sela Ward as Laura Demming
• David Caruso as Larry Hammond
• Tony Jay as Max Hollister
• James Laurenson as Hans Roehrig
• Jon Gries as Azzolini
• Henry G. Sanders as Marvin Burgess
• Chris Mulkey as Ira Rosenberg
• David Neidorf as Bernie Maxwell
• Bruce Weitz as Dan Crawford
• Chelcie Ross as Tom Cutler
• Rutanya Alda as Marge Crawford
• Megan Mullally as Ava Zieff
• Michael Bruce as Rudy

Critical reception

Jason Ankeny of Allmovie gave the film three out of five stars, stating: "In this made-for-cable adaptation of Roderick Thorp's crime thriller, Peter Weller stars as a Hollywood cop whose murder investigation runs into a wall of police corruption."^[6] The book Video Movie Guide 1996 awarded the film two and a half stars out of five,^[7] while VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever gave the film two out of five stars.^[8]