The Burning Train

I think this movie was ahead of its time, and would be a great film to remake with current technology and sensibility. It is a flawed film, and many of these flaws are due to its 80 Bollywood tropes, but it has a lot of plus points which are still impressive in 2016. I will mention them first before I discuss the flaws:

Great character drama. The train is full of all sorts of different kinds of characters, funny, quirky, sexy, angry, criminal, religious, young, old, family, couples, single, and the interactions between them make for very entertaining drama. Think of a road trip movie, except on a train with a myriad of characters.

Great screenplay. Except for the speedbreakers at the start, once the journey on the train begins the screenplay packs a lot of interesting situations and turns of events that keep the journey interesting; the initial character introductions and banter, the realization the breaks have failed, the train catching fire, the attempts by the passengers to save themselves, the frantic efforts by the railway officials to come up with ideas to save the train racing against time. There is never really a dull moment.

Great action. I would not have thought an 80's Bollywood movie would have had such technical finesse. The fast moving burning train actually looks real, the interiors look real, you actually feel like it was shot in an actual train(I am sure some portions were) The parts where some of the characters climb out of the moving train and then try to get to the next cabin by going across the windows or running on the top of the train looks like they really did it. The pyrotechnics are on par with 80's Hollywood. It is evident that this was a big budget movie for its time and it is executed with the same professionalism as similar disaster movies like Towering Inferno.

Great acting. Aside from the 80's acting style, another layer of realism is added by the reactions of the passengers to the impending doom, the desperation to survive and amidst all the mayhem to maintain their humanity. Vinod Khanna as the train's engineer particularly is notable and very handsome, you do wonder why the gene was not passed on to Akshay Khanna.

Now I will begin with the cons:

Takes time to start. The initial half hour is about introducing the leads and their love interests, and there are a couple of unnecessary songs. In fact the only song that really works in the movie is the lone song on the train between all the characters to entertain themselves on the journey. This actually can happen on Indian trains.

Female characters are weak. This is 80's patriarchal Bollywood when feminism had not really taken off yet, and it is evident here as the female characters have little personality and just react to their male counterparts.

At times OTT. Another 80's Bollywood staple is the "Disshom" fighting scenes which are cheesy and you have the OTT comic characters, the Johnny livers of their time, like Asrani with their slapstick routines. The villainous characters are one dimensionally bad.

If it was remade today for a contemporary audiences many of these 80's staples should and would be done away, leaving a great disaster movie. There are not many notable Bollywood disaster movies, so this would provide great material for a contemporary one.

Review By Kamal K

A significant portion of this Bollywood disaster movie is given to song and melodrama as a multitude of characters and attitudes on love and relationships are established. And I found much of that amusing and enjoyable Some of the action and stunts here are really well staged and even when there are moments when clearly miniature models were used.

Every emotion is being touched while narrating a well scripted story. With powerhouse performances from Vinod khanna, Vinod Mehra, Dharmendra, Jeetendra, Danny, Hema Malini, Parveenbabi, Neetu Singh...and even people with small but effective roles shined like Asha Sachdev, Simi grewal, Asrani, Dinesh Thakur.

The Burning Train is a good watch but is very lengthy.

The movie has many characters which makes it boring plus even there are some songs which could have been avoided which could have made the movie short.

But otherwise the movie is an stylish action packed mass entertainer.

Story:- Vinod Verma is an employee of the Indian Railways, who always had a dream of making the perfect and fastest train in India. After years of dedication the Railway Board approves his prototype of the Super Express. But these years had had their toll on his personal life, as his wife, Sheetal and son, are more like strangers to him. He hopes to make it up to them after the train makes it inaugural run from Delhi to Bombay in a record 14 hours. Showing him support are his friends, Ashok and Rakesh. But an embittered fellow-employee named Randhir, the son of the Chair of the Railway Board, has other plans for Vinod and the Super Express - plans that may derail Vinod's delicate personal balance, and make the Super Express' inaugural journey also the final one.

The story is fine The direction is good.

The music is okay.

The action scenes are excellent.

Performances:- Dharmendra steals the show with his stellar performance.Vinod Khanna is good.Jeetendra is perfect.Hema Malini,Parveen Babi and Neetu Singh are okay in their respective roles.Danny Dengzonpa is superb.

All in all,The Burning Train is a good weekend watch!

Indian filmmakers have been taking inspiration from Hollywood flicks but very few such filmmakers openly admit it. Director Ravi Chopra (son of the legendary film director - late B.R. Chopra) saw a Hollywood movie - The Towering Inferno (1974) and got inspiration for making an Indian movie. He openly admitted this fact also. The Towering Inferno was based on the plot of the fire in a building whereas Ravi Chopra decided to make a movie on an incident of burning of a running train. And he made a brilliant movie whose climax (the train on fire) is simply mesmerizing and by inserting all the regular Bollywood formulae according to the taste of the (Indian) public, he finally served a Masaala flick to the Hindi movie audience.

The Burning Train is the story of three childhood buddies - Ashok (Dharmendra), Vinod (Vinod Khanna) and Randhir (Danny Denjongpa). Vinod and Randhir were at loggerheads even in their childhood and the rivalry continues even after their growing-up and becoming employees of the Indian Railways. Ashok has been in love with Seema (Hema Malini) but gets heartbroken when she leaves him due to his losing his wealth and becoming poor and vanishes from his life. Vinod marries the love of his life - Sheetal (Parveen Babi) and gets a kid but his family life is not pleasant because he is not able to give sufficient time to his family due to extreme busyness. Randhir's jealousy towards Vindo has not only carried over since their childhood but it has deepened in adulthood due to Randhir's losing out to Vinod for Sheetal's love also.

Why Vinod is not able to devote time towards his family ? Because he has been relentlessly working upon his dream project of making a magnificent train for the Indian Railways. The train is all set for its inaugural run from Delhi to Mumbai when Sheetal finally leaves Vinod's house and highly sad Vinod moves to the control room of the train to take care of the technicalities, sending his friend and colleague Rakesh (Vinod Mehra) to Mumbai by flight to welcome the train there upon arrival. Ashok and Randhir are also on the train due to different reasons. There are different kinds of passengers on the train including a small time thief - Ravi (Jeetendra) and a young girl - Madhu (Neetu Singh) who is escaping from a marriage being forced on her by her family.

The drama gets a boost when Ashok comes across Seema in the train and to avoid her, gets down from the train in the middle of the journey only to find Randhir in a bar who tells him that he has kept a time bomb in the engine of the train to sabotage the train and taint the repute of Vinod. Now starts the tussle between the baddie and the heroes to save the train which is set on fire after the explosion and with its brakes also failing, is going to meet its disaster and the death of all its passengers. The prolonged and thrilling climax leads to the happy ending of the movie.

The movie has all kinds of regular Bollywood formulae, entertaining the typical Indian movie buffs but its essence is the climax which justifies its title. The climax is pretty long and sensational. It's technically superb and contains several twists and turns, making the final part of the story of the movie a see-saw. It's full of not only action and thrill but also sentiments and music. It containscertain tear-jerking scenes too. Several character artists have got ample opportunity to leave their mark in the final sequence of events.

Though Ravi Chopra had got the inspiration for making this movie from The Towering Inferno, by default perhaps, it gives glimpses of the Titanic mishap also (the Hollywood movie - Titanic was made much later than this movie) in which the inaugural journey of the ship fails and that journey contains all kinds of RASAs of literature - romance, sentiments, humour, action, thrill just everything. This way, similarities can easily be seen between The Burning Train and Titanic.

The music of R.D. Burman is not great but not bad either. The songs appear good to ears when listened to during the movie. However the Qawwaali - Pal Do Pal Ka Saath Hamaara Pal Do Pal Ke Yaarane Hain is a memorable one both in terms of the lyrics and the melody and also the picturization.

The Burning Train boasts of a great star cast, viz. Dharmendra, Hema Malini, Vinod Khanna, Parveen Babi, Jeetendra, Neetu Singh, Vinod Mehra, Danny Dengjongpa, Simi Garewal, Asha Sachdev, Romesh Sharma, Padmini Kapila etc. I give full marks to director Ravi Chopra that he did justice to all the characters and allowed every one of them to leave his / her mark in the story. All of of them have done pretty well though footage awarded to them varies from character to character.

All in all, it's a highly entertaining movie with technical excellence which I unconditionally recommend to movie buffs of all categories. I wonder why this movie was commercially unsuccessful despite all the necessary ingredients of success. Perhaps it was ahead of its time. Indian audience did not like such movies those days. However now the taste of the Indian audience has changed a lot and I believe, if B.R. Films decides to re-release it, it will get the love and appreciation of the Indian audience.

"The Burning Train" is a very nicely put together, entertaining action thriller. The film is a tribute to India's railways, and to sacrifice and heroism. The sacrifice made by the heroes of the film in trying to save the 'burning train' is nicely mirrored by the sacrifices they make in their personal lives, often with less than happy results.

The movie is also a very satisfying story about relationships (particularly the friendship between Vinod (played by Vinod Khanna) and Ashok (played by Dharmendra), envy, betrayal, redemption - and love.

Dharmendra(whom I love love love - that was 3 loves) and Vinod Khanna (whom I love love - that was 2 loves) are excellent in this movie (as always),putting in brilliant performances. They are very effective and complimentary leads, and they're also quite funny (the scenes where they try to snag their girlfriends by tricking them are great).

Hema Malini is excellent as well (I always love the energy between her and Dharmendra - see the classic 'Sholay', although Malini's character in this movie is very different from Sholay's 'Basanti'). Parveen Babi (in a smaller but very effective role) is good too. There are parallels between their roles and relationship in this movie, and the roles they played in 'Do Aur Do Paanch'. That's not a criticism, though - if it ain't broke, why fix it? I think they make a great pair.

Danny, who plays the villain ('Ranvir') does quite a good villainous face, I must say! With his pitiful 'wannabe great but know I ain't' demeanour (supplemented by even more pitiful hair), you can't help but feel sorry for the guy. Nice portrayal of how a villain can still manage to be really pathetic.

All the other performances (Jeetendra, Neetu Singh and the others - the scene when they all sing on the train is another highlight of the film) are fantastic as well.

The film is really well scripted...it never drags on and maintains a nice brisk pace. It's kept to a nice length as well. I also love the opening scene, which introduces the main characters perfectly. I had to go back and watch it after the movie was over.

The big-budget (for that time) special effects in this movie also deserve a mention. Despite a couple of forgivable poor shots of a model train, the 'burning train' of the movie's title is very realistically portrayed. You almost feel as though you're on the train tracks. Very nice work.

I also have to mention the lovely song sung by Vinod Khanna, Dharmendra, Hema Malini and Parveen Babi near the beginning of the movie (ok, I know it wasn't sung by the actors but by Asha Bhonsle, Mohammed Rafi, Kishore Kumar etc, but you know what I mean). Captures the mood perfectly - the bliss of love and friendship (sorry if that's not actually what the song was about - I don't understand Hindi and the song wasn't subtitled - so just guessing here)... just before life (as it usually does) jumps up and bites you in the behind. I love the song and the choreography.

By the way, if you don't like a healthy dose of sentimentality (in which case you probably don't like Bollywood movies in the first place), then this movie is not for you.

Anyhow, I think I've said enough...all that's left to say is this is a great, entertaining movie for the family. It has action, thrills, romance, comedy, everything. I wish there were more like this.