Speed Train - Todesfahrt in die Hölle

The Last Siege is in My opinion a very good action movie with an unusual cast! Jeff Fahey, Ernie Hudson, Ernie Hudson Jr., Patrick Kilpatrick, Frank McRae, Beth Toussaint, and Brent Huff were all good in this movie. Brent Huff reminded Me a lot of Michael Wincott. Its something that Patrick Kilpatrick was in a similar movie called Under Siege 2: Dark Territory years before this was made. He even plays a similar character in this film and not to mention he is very good in the movie! I think he is an underrated actor. The music is very good in the movie, it has solid acting, action, directing, musical score, and everything else. If you liked Under Siege 2: Dark Territory and want to see another great film similar like it then The Last Siege is an awesome film to watch!

A whistle stop campaign turned hijacking, this movie borrows a bit from Konchalovsky's "Runaway Train." It's a lean popcorn action thriller. Not a ton of character development, and the continuity between scenes is a bit uneven, but none-the-less it is a good example of the genre.

On the other hand, why not just watch Under Siege 2 again and save yourself a job? There seemed a time - long, long ago, I know - when Jeff Fahey seemed to be going somewhere. It seemed as if he might be going to the same kind of place, say, Billy Zane was going. Unfortunately, they misjudged their stop and got off at Palookaville, where they have been resident ever since, hardly troubling the rest of us with their 'adventures'. And then, after so long - this! Does anyone else see the irony of a 'vehicle' for JF being... a hijacked train? This is even worse than the Pinter-penned drivel that was the remake of 'Sleuth'. Why take something good and regurgitate it as this kind of pap? Well, actors got to eat too - even if it is crow.

No one on earth knows exactly how many DIE HARD rip-offs features were put in production since the original, no one nows how many zeros are after the first number, how many junk, garbage stuff, most of them destined to straight to VHS or DVD rental market. This one makes no exception and this won't enhance Jeff Fahey's career, whose hightlight character was in Clint Eastwood's WHITE HUNTER BLACK HEART, back in 1988. But we must admit that it evokes the firearms issue in the USA, surprising to find such a topic in this kind of film. It remains a good time waster anyway.

Maybe it should just have been called the Ernie Hudsons show? Father and son feature heavily in this rather rudimental train hijack film that has plenty of derring-do but virtually no jeopardy at all. Jeff Fahey was never better than C-list, and here his proves his acting worth as the ATF agent who must thwart an evil plan to detonate a nuclear bomb on board the train killing Hudson Snr. ("Sen. Wilson") and a few million others. Adventures on a train can work well, but this doesn't really offer anything more than a vehicle for a few mediocre actors to deliver some set-piece action scenarios with daft dialogue for just over 90 minutes before an ending that, though after a bumpy road (or rail?), was just never in doubt. Nah, give it a miss.