RUNAWAY TRAIN
4/10
Called a 4-star action classic along the lines of The Seven Samurai and Stagecoach by Roger Ebert, this laughably overwrought Andrei Konchalovsky film finds two escaped convicts (Jon Voight and Eric Roberts) trying to escape their Alaskan prison via train -- only to find the car they're on is on a course to nowhere after the engineer suffers a fatal heart attack. With only themselves and one female worker (Rebecca DeMornay) on the train left to stop it, the duo quarrel, bicker, fight, argue and swear at one another on their way to a seemingly dead end.
Words cannot describe how ridiculous this film is. Konchalovsky apparently left the actors to do whatever they wanted, which is perfectly understandable given how wretched both Voight and Roberts are here -- with heavy accents and hideously over-the-top mannerisms, this movie plays like a duel between two "method" actors trying to give the worst performance. The film cuts between scenes of the train with a "control center" where Kenneth McMillan, Kyle T. Heffner and others bicker, swear, and likewise give hysterical performances -- the sequence in which warden John P. Ryan appears, trying to convince Heffner that one of his escaped men is on the train, and then follows him into the bathroom where he tries to drown him in a toilet (!) is nearly unmatched for its comedy value. Or the scene where Ryan attempts to send one of his men, from a helicopter ladder, onto the train, only to see him crash through the front window, off onto the track where (presumably) his head is crushed in, is similarly, unintentionally hilarious.
For a movie said to be "inspired" by an Akira Kurosawa screenplay, it's also inconceivable how poor the dialogue is -- I loved the exchange between Voight and DeMornay near the end, where he describes Roberts as an idiot, to which DeMornay replies,
"you're mean!"
There are some well-executed stunt scenes, I suppose, but the detour into pretentiousness at the end is just the icing on the cake -- while Trevor Jones' horrific score uses an '80s playbook of electric guitars and Faltemeyerian synths. It's just as bad as the movie itself.
A candidate for one of the most overrated films of the '80s, if not all-time (and yes, Paul, you were right about this one!).
Arrow Video UK's Blu-Ray/DVD combo is notable for having a series of new interviews with the cast and director. Roberts calls the film "long winded" and derides Konchalovsky for being "pompous". Konchalovsky, on the other hand, calls Roberts a "problem" to work with and "insecure." It's the kind of thing you wish we'd see more of in these usually bland, boring video interviews!
