Runaway Train
Starring Jon Voight, Eric Roberts, and Rebecca DeMornay
Directed by Andrei Konchalovsky
Written by Djordje Milecevic, Paul Zindel, Edward Bunker, based mostly on a screenplay by Akira Kurosawa
Runaway Train is a movie uncontrolled. At its finest, it’s a chilly and brutal depiction of life in a most safety jail; at its worst, it’s a bungled parable on the futility of escape.
Escape for hardened criminals Manny (Jon Voight) and Buck (Eric Roberts) means an elusive shot at freedom, however Russian director Andrei Konchalovsky (Siberiade, Maria’s Lovers) tries to instill their quest with deeper significance. He appears bent on driving house his parallel imaginative and prescient of a society uncontrolled, and neither the script nor the actors fare properly underneath the load of his noble intentions.
At the movie’s epicenter is the large, haunting determine of a runaway prepare thundering by way of the Alaskan mountain wilderness. Manny and Buck, by way of a somewhat unimaginable chain of occasions, discover themselves aboard the screaming metallic monster after simply escaping their jail cells. At first they consider they’ve secured their freedom, however slowly start to comprehend that there isn’t any engineer on the controls, that they’ve exchanged one set of bonds for one more, and that they’re helplessly alone.
Helpless, sure; alone, no. There is, it seems, a 3rd passenger aboard: Sara (Rebecca DeMornay), a railroad employee who was aboard the prepare when it first rolled freed from the rail yard. She is the rational counterbalance to the madness of Manny and Buck.
Though filmed in shade, Runaway Train appears for all intents and functions like a black and white function. The prepare is a rushing black bullet towards the pristine white of the Alaskan snow. Dark bushes and bare rocks rush endlessly previous us, and every part else appears a pale shade of grey. The solely notable exception is available in an excruciatingly painful scene the place Manny’s hand is crushed between prepare coupling. The wash of blood, filmed with a somewhat indifferent nonchalance, attracts a pointy distinction to the untouched snow of the encompassing panorama and jolts the viewer out of the boring despair introduced on by the remainder of the image.
The script – by Djordje Milecevic, Paul Zindel, Edward Bunker, and god solely is aware of who else – was based mostly on an earlier screenplay by the good Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa (Seven Samurai and Ran). Unfortunately, one thing has been misplaced within the translation. Or perhaps quite a lot of somethings. Whenever this many writers get their arms on a screenplay, bother cannot be far behind. Kurosawa’s imaginative and prescient has been swallowed by the committee and spit again out in and unrecognizable kind, leading to an overbearing pretentiousness and laughable dialog.
The appearing does not assist issues any. Jon Voight, an Academy award-winner finest identified for his highly effective roles in Midnight Cowboy and Coming Home, struggles together with his dialog all through and is pressured to utter such schlock traces as, “What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.” He overacts the half, however his pressured histrionics are refined understatements in comparison with the theatrics of Eric Roberts, who drew well-liked and significant raves for his psychopathic function in Star 80, can not seem to management himself right here. He dances throughout the display screen in a fidgety mass of nervous mannerisms embarrassingly harking back to his flip in The Pope of Greenwich Village. Roberts would not know subtext if it bit him. The manic vitality that labored so properly in Star 80 is tough to take critically right here.
Forget Voight’s Best Actor nomination for this movie; neglect Roberts’ Best Supporting nomination as properly. The former is a fluke based mostly largely on the respect garnered by previous performances; the latter is past comprehension.
Rebecca DeMornay, almost unrecognizable from her earlier roles in Risky Business and The Slugger’s Wife, is greater than competent because the scruffy bystander caught up in circumstances past her management. Keneth McMillan (Ragtime, Dune) can also be superb in a small function, because the railroad boss desperately making an attempt to avert catastrophe.
If director Konchalovsky does not fairly handle to deliver al these parts collectively right into a coherent complete – and he does not – he does know learn how to tighten the thumbscrews, sustaining and constructing suspense all through. Herein lies the movie’s energy. Each body of Runaway Train packs extra pressure than most thrillers can boast of of their entirety.
Too unhealthy he could not get the remainder of this Train on monitor.
Reviewed by David Wisehart
About Post Author
