‘Train’ returns to true style

Press, 15 September 1986, Page 5

‘Train’ returns to true style

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hans petrovic

RUNAWAY TRAIN Directed by Andrei Konchalovsky Screenplay by Djordje Milicevic, Paul Zindel and Edward Bunker “Runaway Train” (Savoy) takes prison-escape ■ films back to the style in which they should be presented — hard-hitting, unsentimental, and with terrible impact. There is hardly time for light-hearted humour here — this is all a matter of life and death; and there are no false heroics — people are desperately trying to escape the nasty consequences of what has been set in motion. More than that, "Runaway Train” is also a riproaring action movie that continues to build momentum right up to the unpredictable, but satisfying denouement.

The story starts in an ideal existentialist setting: a high security prison in Alaska, the kind of place where hell has frozen over.

Manny (Jon Voigt) is a hardened psychopath who has just been released from three years in a welded-shut cell. His main aim is to escape, a sentiment he shares with the inhumane chief guard (John P. Ryan), who would like this as an excuse to kill the incorrigible prisoner, who has become a kind of hero to the other inmates. Prison riots and brutality, delivered at a breakneck speed during the first half hour, set the pace for the rest of the film as Manny and a young punk, Buck (Eric Roberts), escape through a foetid sewer.

Out in the icy northwestern wilderness, they head for a railway yard where they board a tandem link-up of four engines. The engineer throws the engines into full throttle, but then, with the train approaching full speed, suffers a heart attack and is thrown off. Aware of what has happened, the control tower triggers the brakes by remote control, but they burn off. As the trainmen watch their electronic board in horror, the engines hurtle out of the yard, taking with them the two escaped convicts

and a young woman employed by the railways, Sara (Rebecca DeMornay), who just happened to be on board the illfated train. From there, the train runs a near-disastrous obstacle course, crashing through the caboose of a freight train and thundering across a rickety bridge, while the railway control and the people on board are trying everything conceivable to prevent the inevitable outcome.

Meanwhile, the chief guard is also hot on the trail, and finally manages to have himself lowered on to the train from a helicopter, for the final showdown with Manny, his arch-opponent.

It would be unfair to reveal the ending but, as

already said, it proves to be brutally satisfying and just; the only objection being the incongruous heavenly choir on the soundtrack. “Runaway Train” is based on a screenplay by Japan’s Akira Kurasawa, and I can imagine his intense, sweeping style (“Derzu Uzala”) would have been just right for this film. As it happened, “Run-

away Train” fell into the hands of an acclaimed Russian director, Andrei ("Uncle. Vanya”) Konchalovsky, making his second American film. (His - first, “Maria’s Lovers,’’ with Nastassia Kinski, has not surfaced here yet). Konchalovsky certainly displays a tough, no-non-sense style that seems quite foreign to that of today’s American filmmakers, who could not have resisted diluting the impact of “Runaway Train” with unnecessary comic or romantic relief. His brutality is cringingly uncompromising, but never gratuitous. It is just that you are meant to feel what the characters in the film are going through. The browny, gritty photography of Alan

Hume, contrasted by the white of the wilderness, also adds to the desperation of the characters — the loneliness of the longdistance flyer. Jon Voight, with some unflattering make-up and a stainless steel tooth, gives one of the best performances of his career in a film that could only be equalled by Voight’s “Deliverance” for impact. Also notable are Roberts (“Village Dreams”) as his dumb, but likeable sidekick, and Ryan as the chief guard who cannot see that his self-righteousness is as dehumanising as the actions of the convicts. “Runaway Train” may prove a little hard to take for the squeamish, but is, nevertheless, first-rate entertainment and film-mak-ing.