Lasko - El tren de la muerte

This was a pretty good action movie with believable characters, given the genre. The ex- soldier Lasko sick of death and hiding out in a monastery (Mathis Landwehr) reluctantly takes up the gauntlet to be the Vatican's point man in a struggle against terrorists centered on a train bearing pilgrims from Cologne Germany to Lourdes.

You also have a deadly virus, helicopters, explosions, martial arts fights in and on top of the moving train, rockets, guns, knives, the works. Pretty good pyrotechnics too. The single most unbelievable thing in the plot is when a henchman parks his truck right across the tracks while waiting to pick up the bad guys, anticipating the train will stop before it hits him, thinking the bad guys control the engine. I cannot believe anyone would not simply have parked a few meters away, just off the tracks. Too stupid to believe even of idiots.

I could more readily swallow Vatican secret agents than that incident, though who knows. There were military orders of monks during the crusades.

Mathis Landwehr looks to be in great shape in the early scenes when he is shirtless. He has a fine physique: lean but muscular and looks completely believable as a martial artist.

I hope they do a sequel, as the title suggests. In English it was Lasko:Death Train. That suggests Lasko: the Next Adventure. I would watch it.

I have to think hard here. have I seen another action film about a train that poses a threat to the world if it is not stopped? Is there another train film where all of the passengers are threatened? Hmm, I just watched Midnight Meat train and Night Train Murders. Those certainly had some real terror on the train.

If you have seen Steven Segal's film where he tried to stop the bad guys on a train, you have seen this one. I seem to recall that Jean Claude even did one called Derailed. There was even another 2001 film called Death Train set in Mexico.

We have been trained to death and I don't think we need another. This was mildly interesting. We did have the daughter of the devil dressed as a nun. A little nunsploitation there.

There was also the cute kid angle, and the soldier who was tired of war and became a monk. Didn't Rambo do that, too?

I enjoyed Stephan Bieker, but that was the only character that interested me. There was good stunt work, lots of explosions and some good martial arts action, but that doesn't compensate for a poor script, and we've seen it all before

Secret agents for God? Give me a break.

Great action film all round really. Saw this at Cannes 2005 and had a blast watching it and it was a class touch getting Arnold Vosloo to play the lead villain. My only complaint is that the lead character played by the highly versatile Mathis Landwehr does not get to demonstrate as much of his martial arts ability as he did in Kampfansage. However, the crashing explosion at the end of the film must be one of the largest i've ever seen in all my years. A genuine spectacle. Great fun from start to finish, and it's great to see an Action Concept film making the leap to English language. Although I generally like subtitled films myself, this will hopefully ensure that their films will be seen in more territories worldwide. Well worth seeking out.

It's sad but true, this movie is just a waste of money. Don't get me wrong, I've seen movies which were far more worse. But this flick is just poorly written and badly directed. The action and fight scenes look cheap and most of the acting is poor, due to the actors or the director I can't decide. There are only two reasons to watch this movie - Steve Nicolson and Arnold Vosloo. No outstanding performances, the script is simply to mediocre for that, but both deliver their parts dependably and professional. If you like these two actors and don't expect too much, you'll be entertained anyhow. But make sure, you have enough Chips or Popcorn with you, in case that you get bored.

It's not a terrible film. It just isn't that good either. The constant slow-motion throughout every action sequence was incredibly frustrating. The scenes were a bit disjointed at time: just as I thought a scene was actually going to add something useful to the story, it'd jump to another little snippet. In saying that though there were some entertaining moments and hey, who doesn't find kung-fu religion-protecting monks entertaining?

Other than being a little frustrating with just how much better the movie could've been given the reasonable-ish story line and the odd explosion, not too bad a movie. Worth watching if you're procrastinating from doing more useful things