Night Train

John Hurt, Brenda Blethyn, and Pauline Flanagan star in "Night Train," a 1998 film directed by John Lynch.

An ex-con, Michael Poole, rents a room in the home of Alice Mooney (Blethyn) and her mother (Flanagan). Of course they know nothing about him. They hear him moving furniture, banging, and hammering.

Michael knows people are after him, and he knows why. These people will stop at nothing, including torturing a man for information. Gross scene, very disturbing.

Michael gets a job in an abattoir and, for the squeamish, just close your eyes. It's the grossest thing I have ever seen in a movie. I almost threw up. OMG it was awful.

One day the nosy mother goes into the room while he's gone and nearly kills herself tripping over his gigantic train set -- complete with mountains, train stations, and rails and trains all over the place. His favorite is the Orient Express, and he has the full route on his set.

Michael shows it to Alice, and gradually, the two fall in love. She has never had much of a life, thanks to her mother, and he wants to stop playing with trains and get on one. He invites her to go with him on the Orient Express. By now, he knows he has to get out of town. She accepts, not realizing that the people after him now know where he worked and where he lives.

Despite getting sick to my stomach (I don't eat meat, thank God) this is a beautifully acted film about two people at the end of the line. Blethyn, looking so pretty here,has a need for love, and evokes real sympathy, as she has to live with her insulting, nasty mother and doesn't think she can leave her. Hurt is wonderful as an aging, lost man who is sick of running and wants to grab at life.

Flanagan plays an unlikeable woman, but her meanness comes from her own sadness, and a real desire to keep her daughter from suffering as she did. It's also a meanness borne out of selfishness; she's afraid to lose her daughter's care.

The neighbors -- well, they're interesting, and I'll leave it at that. Let's just say clothes disappear off clotheslines.

I absolutely loved this film for the beautiful portrayals and the story. That's saying a lot, because I nearly turned it off. I'm glad I didn't.

This was a mystery of sorts, but more of a romance. The story-line was a little ponderous to start with and "Night Train's" plot is rather common: a man with a troubled past, just released from jail, attempts to hide from a former employer-crook from whom he stole money; he hides in a rooming house run by an elderly widow with an unhappy spinster daughter under her mother's domination; the boarder and daughter become friends; as the crooks close in on the boarder, he convinces the daughter to escape and start a new life, which she does; he then admits that he's on the run because of stolen money, which she demands he return or forget the relationship. Hurt and Blethin were both well cast as the leads and they really did make the whole film work as it picked up momentum. The scenes aboard the Orient Express in Europe were simply beautiful and breathtaking and it was a shame that there wasn't a scene or two on the British Pullman but with the initial story being set in Ireland I guess it made sense to go by boat to Europe and pick up the Orient Express there. Based on the cover photo I was expecting a fast paced thriller but this was just right. Quirky little movie, but worth the time.

Overall rating: 7 out of 10.

I went to see this 1999 Palm Springs International Film Festival offering the night of it's U.S. Premiere, January 16th. at the Annenberg Theatre in Palm Springs. I must confess, I went mainly to see Brenda Blethyn. I was not disappointed, as this proved to be yet another in a series of wonderful performances by this brilliant actress.

Like a school child, I found myself turning often during the screening to look in the direction of where Ms. Blethyn was sitting (three seats over), just to see if she was as enthralled with her own on-screen presence as I was. Sadly, I witnessed no such self-indulgent behavior on her part, and I never really expected to. What I did see was a handsome woman, almost timid in appearance, sitting and enjoying a movie with the rest of us; all so contrary, at least in my mind, to her on-screen persona.

A chain of events draws Blethyn and Hurt together into a love affair which is deepened by each in a mutual need to escape the past. The fragile story line takes it's toll here, resulting in a rather lacklustre presentation. This is not to say that the film isn't in itself an enjoyable little journey. It does have its moments where genuine acting abilty and some beautiful scenery carry what otherwise might be a heavy load.

Mr. Hurt's usual vitality appears to be on the decline. It is also difficult to view him as a mere love interest after the strength of character in so many of his other varied roles of the past...

At the end of the nineteenth century, whenever a filmmaker wanted to convey a sense of urgency and romance, he took his camera, placed it on a railway platform and waited for the sound of a steam whistle. The 1898 movie shorts, ‘Arrival Of Tokyo Train' and ‘Train Hour in Durango, Mexico' do not have modern equivalents. The fact is we prefer not to have drama in our airports. We don't want smoke billowing from our 747's, and we would feel decidedly uncomfortable if every flight were presaged by a man in a navy uniform looking to his pocket watch before announcing, "all aboard now, ladies and gentlemen".

John Lynch, in his engaging feature ‘Night Train', finds passion in his performers rather than in the iron behemoth of the title. The urgency and romance are delivered by John Hurt and Brenda Blethyn, both powerful actors who understand that the full force of love can be projected more with the unsaid and ineffable than with the spoken word.

The romance begins when Michael Poole (Hurt) introduces Alice Mooney (Blethyn) to his secret obsession, the elaborate train set which he has been constructing in his room. Poole, recently released from jail for embezzlement, is now being pursued by the gangster (Lorcan Cranitch) he swindled. So, this sheltered world of miniature tracks and sidings must soon be exchanged for the real thing as our protagonists set off on the Orient Express for Venice.

‘Night Train' is always much more than a chase movie because it explores an area not often charted in recent films. Love is not the sole property of supple young boys and girls whose close-ups invariably involve open pores and beads of perspiration. Sometimes love is simply about forgotten desires and about hope and, to quote the writer John Rechy, sometimes hope is an end in itself.

Night train is a film that reminds us of our frailties.

Delighted to find this has been picked up by Lifetime Movies and will get the exposure it deserves. Sensitive performances and well-photographed travellogue plus an odd subplot make this a winner. Blethyn in particular is her usual talented self and somehow we even begin to see John Hurt as handsome thru her eyes--no small feat!