RogerAngle

This movie was developed from an Elmore Leonard novel, and it has everything I hated about Elmore Leonard novels. The bad guys are bad because the script calls for it, and they are one-dimensional and dull. We don't care about them, and they don't care about us. Evil comes into the good guys' lives arbitrarily, without meaning, by coincidence. So we just hope the good guys survive. But that isn't enough to make a good movie. There is no moral center or moral vision. I guess it's bad to kill people, unless they are evil. That is as moral as it gets. To me, a moral vision is necessary for any story to work. The human heart is not in conflict with itself here. Lacks depth and complexity. It's well acted and well shot, just not well thought-out.

Plodding, linear, predictable, stupid. One of the worst movies I have ever seen. Lacks story and character development, logic, and common sense. My friend picked it, and we were both sorry. I don't understand why anyone would make this movie. As she pointed out, the analogy between the train and planet earth makes no sense. In a lot of the scenes, the train does not seem to be moving. They forgot to jiggle the set or wiggle the camera. Very distracting. Often the reveals are told, not shown. The last scene, with Ed Harris, is especially bad. He lectures us about the way thing are—everyone in his place, we have to kill a certain number of people, blah-blah-blah. Terrible. This movie offers nothing to recommend it: no insight into human nature or the human condition. Avoid at all costs.