The film begins in the mid 90's war torn Balkan's. Naive Lana (Oksana Orlenko) searches for her brother, Darko (Nickolai Stoilov), whom she hasn't seen in seven years, and finds him on the run from gangsters, even going so far as to get plastic surgery to disguise himself (and that surgery was rushed , leaving him with an eyepatch). The two flee to America, smuggled in via a shipping crate, and end up in Chicago where things quickly take a turn for the worse.

With no money, no means, and little command of the language, they find a seedy to dive to live in and Lana takes to hooking on the streets with Darko as her pimp. Though Darko promises it is only temporary, over the next few months, Lana finds those promises are empty and Darko is busier recruiting more girls for his stable rather than finding legitimate work. Despite meeting a kind struggling sculptor, Julien, who also is having difficulty realizing the immigrants dream, Lana's situation worsens and she is forced to take drastic measures to escape.

The first half of Lana's Rain shows some promise that the film may be a good immigrant drama like In America, perhaps even with some sad strands of selling your body for survival like Lilya 4-Ever, but the last half of the film effectively shatters any promise by falling into cumbersome thriller territory. And, this ain't Dirty Pretty Things which did the immigrant thriller thing to perfection.

Now, before I expand on the missteps, I have to say that Oksana Orlenko gives it her all and does a fairly admirable job. Though sometimes sinking, even in the cheesiest bits of plotting, she usually keeps her performance a step above. At first we believe that Darko, while a gangster, may just be a opportunist who takes any route he can to survive, thus even pimping out his sister. Then, about the midway point in the film, any shades of gray he might have are washed away and, for the rest of the film, he is painted in wicked tones worthy of a sneering cartoon villain. As the film started to spiral into pedestrian suspense film territory, complete with out of nowhere revelations and twists, everything that was remotely interesting about the film dissolved and its faltering points (like some suspension of disbelief stuff including Lana learning English from a Dr Suess book she got out of the garbage, to Darko getting away with pulling a gun in a crowded nightclub) became all the more obvious.

The DVD:

Picture: Anamorphic Widescreen. Well, I was surprised to find out the film was only two years old. Despite a foreword that talks about the mid nineties struggle in the Balkans, from the look of the film, you could swear it was made in the 80's. I guess most of the muddy image quality can be attributed to its low budget, however, the films director, Michael S. Ojeda has mainly cinematography credits on his resume, so one wonders. The print has some spots, and the grain and contrast details do show the low budget kinks. Colors, likewise, are muted.

Sound: Dolby Stereo or 5.1 Surround tracks. Burned in English subtitles for the bits where Darko and Lana are seeking in their native tongue, but unfortunately, these burned in subs are white, so they fade into the background making some of the dialogue indecipherable. The audio is decent, but has the marks of a low budget production, like some generic sound fx, lame scoring, or the odd noisily recorded bit of dialogue.

Extras: Audio Commentary by the director, producer, and star Oksana Orlenko.— Behind the Scenes Featurette (15:28)— Anatomy of a Scene (2:00)— Behind the Scenes "Chicago Tonight" Segment (6:44). This is a bit from a local Chicago show on the film.— Trailer— Photo Gallery.

Conclusion: Well, I found this indie to be a disappointment. At first the tale of immigrants struggles was engaging but then, in the latter half, it went for cheap pulp instead of thoughtful drama. The DVD presentation is middling. The image and sound quality are a bit rough around the edges; though, to be fair, this wasn't a film that was working with much of a budget so the lack of polish is forgivable. Probably, at best, Lana's Rain should be reserved as a rental.