Tuesday, May 05, 2015

Overlooked Movies -- Runaway Train

This is another of those movies in which the people in authority over criminals are worse than the criminals themselves, but that's not the heart of the film.  The first part is a prison-break movie with Jon Voight and Eric Roberts escaping from stir and a brutal warden.  After they're out, they hike across a lot of frozen tundra in Alaska and finally get on a train consisting for four engines and hide in the toilet compartment.  This part of the movie's very good in itself, but we're just getting to the real reason for the film. 

The train's engineer has a heart attack.  He gets off the train, setting the brakes but not the throttle.  The brakes eventually burn away, and there's where we get the runaway train.  There are, as you might imagine, problems.  What about other trains on the track?  What about curves in the icy winter with the train going at top speed and no way to slow down and no one to slow it down even if the brakes worked?  What about human conflicts?  

Especially human conflicts because while this is a great action movie, it's really about Voight and Roberts, both of whom are really, really good.  In fact, in watching this you might be wondering, "What happened to Eric Roberts?"  He was a fine actor in this, with an Oscar nomination, and the next thing you know he's making direct-to-VHS movies.  I was teaching in the prison units near Alvin occasionally when this movie came out, and Roberts was perfection.  He would've  fit into the general population of any unit where I taught.

It turns out there's one other person on the train, Rebecca deMornay, and she's also very good.  So is John P. Ryan as the brutal prison warden.  And Edward Bunker has a nice part as Voight's brother.

This is an action movie with some heart (and even a brain), fine acting, plenty of suspense, and a great climactic scene.  Check it out.

9 comments:

Prashant C. Trikannad said...

Bill, it looks like the idea for Denzel Washington's UNSTOPPABLE came from this film. Whenever I see Jon Voight, I think "villain," a role that suits him.

John G. in Detroit said...

I also loved this film. Why would you insinuate actor Jon Voight being a "villain" in real life?

Prashant C. Trikannad said...

John, what I meant was that I find him more suited to a villain's role in films, though I first saw him in a non-villainous role in THE CHAMP.

Jeff Meyerson said...

I saw this and I agree, it was a really good one. And when I saw that Denzel movie a couple of years ago it did make me think (inevitably) of RUNAWAY TRAIN.

Eric Roberts is doing crap now for the most part, like SHARKTOPUS. But a quick perusal of Wikipedia's Roberts filmography shows an incredible 47 titles in 2013 and another 57 in 2014! He makes Michael Caine, Robert DeNiro and Nic Cage look like pikers.

The most intriguing title to me:

2012 - THE DEAD WANT WOMEN

Jeff

Jeff Meyerson said...

OK. Judging by the trailer, THE DEAD WANT WOMEN sounds better than the movie, but Eric does have a great makeup job.

Jeff

Unknown said...

Hard to believe he makes so many movies. Quantity instead of quality, I guess. Not a bad choice.

Graham Powell said...

In HEAT Voight played a character based on Edward Bunker. Guess he'd already done his research.

Rick Robinson said...

Sadly not available on Netflix. That seems to be happening more and more lately.

Unknown said...

That's too bad because this is really a good one.