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Runaway Train | Year: 1985 Classification: Action Country: USA Language: English Directed: - Andrei Konchalovsky Actors/Actresses: - Rebecca De Mornay - Eric Roberts - Jon Voight High drama and intensity Jon Voight's riveting performance and his battle onboard the train with a prison warden are the most compelling moments in this otherwordly movie about escaped convicts and a railroad employee on a runaway train headed for disaster in the Alaskan wilderness. This film begins with a prison riot -- filmed at an actual prison in Alaska -- and the white hot pace never lets up for a moment...until the closing scene where Voight takes the engine to oblivion. Along the way, viewers are treated to one of Voight's best performances since "Midnight Cowboy". The cast is comprised of character actors Eric Roberts and John P. Ryan in significant roles with sexpot Rebecca De Mornay playing the railroad employee on board the runaway with convicts Voight and Roberts. They stir up a lot of mayhem running through a red light and crashing with another train and going over a rickety bridge about 100 MPH before facing the inevitable when they are pushed onto a siding with only a fatal end in sight. This movie has an extraordinarily high intensity level comparable to another great train movie, 1974's "The Taking of Pelham One-Two-Three". The intensity and drama never relents throughout the 111 minutes of screen time. The script isn't much and the plot is lean but the action, violence and high voltage footage will keep you locked to the screen during this most exciting movie. Smashing Through All Obstacles... I'm a railfan -- i try to go to virtually every "train" movie that i hear about. I've seen some mediocre films ("Breakheart Pass"), some Awful Films ("The Cassandra Crossing") and some Pretty Good films ("Silver Streak") that way. And i saw "Runaway Train" -- an Incredible Film. With Jon Voight nominated for Both Oscar and Golden Globe (which he won) as Best Actor, and Eric Roberts nominated for both Oscar and Golden Globe as Best Supporting Actor, and featuring Rebecca deMornay in a decidedly UN-glamourous role, this is obviously not your standard action film. And when one adds that the original screenplay was by Akira Kurosawa, one realises that this is NOT the usual Golan-Globus production at all, at all. In brief, the story is simple -- two cons, one old and experienced and dangerous and one young, cocky and ignorant, break out of a max security prison in Alaska, hop a train headed for the Lower 48, and find themselves (along with a female railroad worker) on a hair-raising ride to nowhere on a runaway train with no brakes and no engineer. But the performances and the nuances make this film Something Special Indeed. Voight's portrayal of Manny, the man so dangerous that for three years his cell door was *welded* shut, is scary, compelling and sympathetic by turns. "Anything that doesn't kill me makes me stronger" is his motto. Eric Roberts's performance as the cocky young loser, destined to spend major parts of his life inside, who can't even recognise good advice when Manny practically rubs his nose in it, is at almost the same level, and honestly deserving of the "Best Supporting" nominations he earned for it. John P. Ryan, as Assistant Warden Rankin, Manny's antagonist and would-be nemesis, is adequate, but not up to the level of performance of Voight and Roberts. In the end, after all of the incredible stunt work and amazing train work, after all of the violence and emotion, it comes down to two big men (Manny and Rankin) finally confronting each other, in one final test to prove which is the stronger. Along the way, Voight, playing the existential monster to the hilt, gives us a view of a man who knows all too vividly that he long ago chose the wrong road, but also knows that there is no turning back for him. When the girl screams at him that he is an animal, he replies "No -- Worse! Human!" He tries to set the kid straight -- tells him that if he's smart he'll find a job flipping burgers or scrubbing toilets, and do it well and earn his pay -- "...and, if you could do that, you could be President of the United States." But the kid knows better -- he wonders why this big tough guy is talking such nonsense; and he doesn't hear the longing in Manny's voice. And the final confrontation and the end -- after one last, horrifying and exhilirating stunt sequence -- is exactly what the film needs for its perfect conclusion; as exhilirating and appropriate in its way as the end of " A MUST-SEE!!! A beautiful movie - this is beyond action... Buy Runaway Train at Amazon.com Buy posters at Allposters.com Jamster - the latest ringtones for your phone!  Search with Walhello on the Internet on Runaway Train Search with the Priority Search Engine on Runaway Train This page in other languages: Suomeksi | Nederlands | Deutsch
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