Tren nocturno a Venecia

If you like experimental films then you might get a modicum of enjoyment out of the non-linear story line, interleaved editing, and Kenneth Anger-style fantasy imagery, but to the rest of us it is a jumbled mess. As the film progresses, many cards are laid on the table, but not a one of them is played. The dialog is embarrassingly bad, and the meager plot meanders in a few different directions, but doesn't develop any of them. It wasn't even bad enough to laugh at. The ending came close to being laughable, but when I realized that this was in fact the end I was furious at having wasted so much time. The ONLY redeeming quality of the film was the images of Venice during Carnival. That was quite haunting and beautiful, but not nearly worth the boredom and frustration one must endure in the vain attempt to make sense out of this cluttered mishmash.

everybody likes to watch bad movies from time to time, simply because they're so bad it's funny. well, this is not one of those movies. no matter how well developed your sense of irony might be, this movie is so insultingly bad that I doubt anybody could derive any pleasure from watching it.

one of the biggest complaints my friends and I had was that it feels like it was written by 3 separate people on 3 different continents, without any knowledge of what the others were doing. for some reason, hugh grant takes a train to venice (imagine that!) and on the trip he meets this woman and has gibberish conversations with her. malcolm mcdowell comes around and says some needlessly cryptic things and a guy gets tossed off the train. then there's the nazis who aren't so much characters as really bad caricatures played by people with no talent.

oh yeah...there's a naked man in a cage at one point, as well as some american nazis holding a rally and beating guys up in the street, though they're in Europe...

once hugh gets to venice, all hell breaks loose...well, not really. the movie just doesn't make any sense from this point on. it's like a bad fever dream. i won't even try to explain because there's no point.

granted, a movie doesn't have to be linear or have a coherent plot to be a good movie...look at david lynch. however, this is not a david lynch film. it's just bad. there is no story, plot, coherence, there are no real characters, and really no point. i'm angry that i watched this and now hate everybody associated with its production.

And I don't think I am exaggerating. Everything is terribly wrong in this picture: from the absolute lack of story (from minute 20 there is nothing to understand) to the amateur performances or cinematography. A complete failure.

This is in my top five worst movies of all time. This film caused me to ask myself many questions, the main one being, why would anyone invest time and money in producing such a stupid film. Bizarrely, it featured some fairly reputable actors. I can only guess they were on crack at the time.

I could discern no coherent plot and have no idea why a girl jumps out of the window at the end. Even more bizarrely, after she jumps out of the window and Hugh manages to catch her (quite miraculously) everybody smiles and the triumphant music begins. Wasn't anyone worried about why a young girl should want to jump out of a window??? In case you watched the beginning and switched it off, as I regret not having done, and you are wondering, who was the Malcolm Macdowell character? No explanation is ever given. He pops up every now and then with an intriguing expression on his face.

The only redeeming feature of this film is that you can have a laugh at the clever techniques used to prolong the film making it up to an astonishing 1 hour and twenty minutes. For example: - lots of pointless slow motion shots with gay music -Hugh and the woman make love at least four times and he kisses her breasts on every occasion. (what kind of mother has sex with a stranger in a train while her daughter is asleep presumably in the same carriage)? - Shots of Macdowell's face every few minutes This film is so bad you should probably watch it

This film was in one of those boxed sets, together with two other films I had never heard of (and Kickboxer staring Van Damme).

When I watch a movie, I don't have any expectations, so am rarely disappointed. When I was watching this one, I was disappointed.

Hugh Grant plays a writer living in Munich, who travels on the Orient Express to take his book manuscript (on the subject of Neo-Nazis) to a publisher in Venice. Unknown to him, a bunch of German skinheads (with authentic American accents) sneak onto the train.

While the above excitement is going on, a parallel story of a beautiful woman with a young daughter, and a white haired stranger hovering around in the background (played by Malcolm McDowell, doing his best to look extremely intense).

I didn't know what to make of this film. From the cinematography I had assumed that this film was shot in the late 80s (actually 1993 - one year prior to Hugh Grants success in Four Weddings and a Funeral). The plot was non-sensical, the direction was non-existent, and at the end of it I had no idea where the time had gone, or what I had just seen.