End of the Line

I am a huge fan of The Band, so I watched this for Levon Helm.

The movie gets off to a strong start. It's one of those movies from the pre-digital era of filmmaking that you just don't see anymore, where the locations look like real places you could see if you walk down the street in any small town in America, and the actors are so convincing that it's hard to believe they're not real people. Movies are so airbrushed and polished and over produced now, and it makes me miss the grit and authenticity that films like this used to have.

If it had stayed grounded and allowed the comedy and drama to arise naturally from the characters and their predicament this could have been a very good and very different movie, but unfortunately it turns cartoonish and silly in the third act.

It has a surprisingly great cast, including two actors, Holly Hunter and Kevin Bacon, who would go on to become stars. I've noticed that some of the promotional material gives Bacon top billing, but this is misleading. This is Wilford Brimley and Levon Helm's movie. Wilford Brimley does a great job being Wilford Brimley, and Levon as always has a convincing, endearing, and charismatic screen presence as a naive but loveable railroad man. Bob Balaban and Clint Howard also make appearances as the chairman of the board of the railroad company and his assistant. They're great character actors and it's always good to see them. Balaban's character has a strange accent that I can't quite place.

It's worth watching not for the quality of the writing but for the performances, and for the way that it highlights a specific, bygone time and place and way of life in America.

A friend at work loaned me this movie because he knows I'm nuts about trains. The plot synopsis, of driving a locomotive from Arkansas to Chicago, seemed too silly and unrealistic, to the point where I wasn't sure I would enjoy the movie. You know, like Karen Black flying a 747.

Fortunately there was a good explanation for how they managed to get the locomotive to Chicago, so I could relax and enjoy some really nice character studies and a fairly decent yarn. The life of folks who live in double-wides was told with a great deal of sympathy and understanding, without being pandering or condescending. Wilford Brimley as the life-long railroad man was particularly well done, as were Barbara Barrie as his wife and Kevin Bacon as a guy with more testosterone than brains.

But any movie that features both Clint Howard and Rita Jenrette is probably not Oscar material, and neither is a movie with a plot hole in the third act big enough to drive a locomotive through. Still, I'm glad I saw the movie. It doesn't bother me at all that I'll never get the time back that I spent watching it.

There are simply too many flaws once the train departs to Chicago and they arrive in the windy city.

The plot gets lost 15 or so minutes in and gets worse as it continues.

Complete with lack of knowledge about time and distance and continuity and overall logic.

What could have been very good with a plausible storyline turned into more science fiction than the entire Star Wars / Star Trek franchise.

Obviously the writers didn't do enough research and thinking in any capacity. Using any real knowledge would have stopped this story dead in it's tracks.

If the theme of "sticking it to the man" was supposed to shine through...it sorely didn't.

This failed miserably - and the good actors had small roles (which is a good thing).

Had Kevin Bacon and a small handful of actors taken on any larger scope of this film, it would have truely killed their careers.

Wilford Brimley didn't have to worry - as he was looking at going to the other side anyway, so this was just something for him to pass time with.

Whatever potential this movie had, disappeared and never came back to reality.

End of the Line is really end of the line...there's nowhere for it to go and once you get there - you wonder why you decided to even take the chance.

This movie does not go anywere. It is not a realistic drama portraiting the poorest side of America, it is not a tale for children.

As much as I love trains, I couldn't stomach this movie. The premise that one could steal a locomotive and "drive" from Arkansas to Chicago without hitting another train along the way has to be right up there on the Impossible Plot lines hit board. Imagine two disgruntled NASA employees stealing the "crawler" that totes the shuttles to and fro and driving it to New York and you get the idea.

Having said all that, it's a nice try. Wilford Brimely is at his Quaker Oats best, and Levon Helm turns a good performance as his dimwitted but well-meaning sidekick. Bob Balaban is suitably wormy as the Corporate Guy, and the "little guy takes on Goliath" story gets another airing.