ViewGuide

Created Oct 25, 2008 08:15PM PST • Edited Sep 03, 2011 11:05AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Good 3.0

   Contemporary thriller-on-a-train, ultimately gripping though it takes a while to get there, not unlike an interesting train trip. Woody Harrelson and Ben Kingsley bring star power to writer-director Brad Anderson’s well constructed movie, though the script and secondary characters are also first rate.

4. Acting

   Good 3.0

   Woody Harrelson doesn’t have to stretch to play a geeky Iowa hardware store owner. Emily Mortimer fails to impress as his troubled wife.

   Ben Kingsley always impresses, here as a wizened Russian narc. First rate bad guy Thomas Kretschmann chills as a stone cold narc on the take. Between his turns here and in Wanted, he’s got to be top of the call list for casting directors looking for ruthless bad-asses.

   Spaniard Eduardo Noriega delivers a terrific performance as a charismatic smuggler. Let’s hope this movie puts him on Hollywood’s radar screen.

5. Male Stars Very Good 3.5

6. Female Stars OK 2.5

7. Female Costars Barely OK 2.0

8. Male Costars Great 4.0

10. Film

    Good 3.0

    Murder on a train – or at least on a train trip – is a classic cinematic setting, here used to great effect as a petri dish in which to examine the interplay of American and European cultures and the unhealthy state of contemporary Russian life. Based on the evidence of this movie, filmmaker Brad Anderson deserves to play with bigger budgets and more ambitious stories.

11. Direction Very Good 3.5

12. Play Good 3.0

    The well constructed story lays out clues and situational predicates, then adroitly picks them up later. Bravo.

13. Music Barely OK 2.0

14. Visuals Very Good 3.5
15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 2.5

    Be warned: there is a seriously cringe-inducing torture scene.

17. Sex Titillating 2.5

18. Violence Brutal 2.7

19. Rudeness Salty 2.3

21. Reality

    Glib 1.1

    Putin’s Russia, a near criminal enterprise, is replete with corrupt officials lording over a citizenry drinking itself to death. The movie depicts this well in the form of the brutal narco-police.

22. Circumstantial Glib 1.4

23. Biological Natural 1.0

24. Physical Natural 1.0