Death Train

I don't mean to bum anyone out right at the beginning of a review, but this is a pretty sucky movie. Sucky on the point of being dreadful. Produced during that period in the early 2000s when the Nu Image studio couldn't make a good movie for neither love nor money, it's an annoying exercise in mundanity. Nearing the end of his career as an action hero, lead star Bryan Genesse does what little he can to make this one stand out but only manages to save it from a rock-bottom rating.

The story: When a gang of arrested thieves (led by Bentley Mitchum) takes over the train transporting them to prison and makes hostages of the passengers, it's up to their captor (Genesse) to end the crisis.

The film was probably made under very limited means, as evidenced by the frequent use of stock footage. The exterior shots of the train are taken from a movie shot in British Columbia, and seeing the filmmakers try to pass off this landscape as the Mexican countryside is kinda goofy. So is the casting: like many Nu Image flicks, this one's supporting roles are predominantly played by Bulgarian performers, and if you think it's been interesting listening to East Europeans fake English dialogue, just wait 'til you hear 'em speaking Spanish. Before long, it seems too much to take for even the producers, who end up dubbing most of the Spanish. Disappointingly, they did not dub Bentley Mitchum's lines. Mitchum is a fair character actor but his performance here is atrocious. The screenplay is clearly going the "crazy dangerous" route with its villain, but this comes across as irredeemably annoying, with Mitchum spewing adolescent threats and insults while largely failing at being intimidating.

Even though the movie makes a point of focusing on various hostages who don't actually affect the story too much, one guy who doesn't get much of a personality at all is the hero. When he first appeared, I thought Bryan Genesse was a side character because of his lack of charisma, and he never gains any throughout the runtime. Genesse was apparently on board with the movie, performing his own stunts while running across and hopping about the moving train, but he's just so generic here that the role could have been played by anybody. This homogeny carries over to the action content, which is comprised mainly of shootouts and a few explosions. Genesse only has two fight scenes, and while the brawl with Mitchum came as a surprise for being anything other than dismal, they're not worth talking about.

DEATH TRAIN doesn't bear thinking about too much: I get grumpy about having wasted my money and want to rate it even lower. I can't recommend it to anyone, and hope that it only finds its way into the hands of its particular niche audience – whoever that may include.

Bryan Genesse's charms aren't dissimilar to his more mainstream meatheaded counterparts Van Damme, Dolph Lundgren, Seagal etc. He's got the necessary brawn and martial arts finesse and surprising watchability despite having very little appeal. What makes or breaks the vehicles he stars in are first and foremost the writer and director.

Unfortunately for Genesse, he doesn't have the collaboration of solid directors like Peter Hyams ("Timecop") or Ringo Lam ("Maximum Risk," "Replicant"). His best film that I've seen is "Human Timebomb," where the real points are earned with the balls-out action sequences that are undeniably fun even when they have the lowest of production values. That director, Mark Roper, shows skill at giving B-movie productions big, well-constructed sequences, but God help him if the script has too much dialogue.

Yossi Wein, who served as cinematographer for Genesse's "Cold Harvest" and "Traitor's Heart", tries to bring similar sensibilities to the 2002 Nu Image flick "Death Train". It starts off with a slam-bang train heist sequence that finds all in top form. From the first ten minutes, Wein shows skill at keeping the action coherent and at least marginally expensive-looking. Genesse doesn't need to bring much more than brawn in this one, and keeps the cringe-worthy wisecracks to a minimum –in comparison to his other performances anyway.

Unfortunately, there is not much more to be found after the competent opener besides loads of camp and unintentional humor. The villain Weaver, played by Bentley Mitchum, is anything but threatening, only memorable for some downright weird lines. There is way too much talking and not enough challenging complications to keep the film moving after the beginning. In fact, Genesse seems to be doing pointless acrobatic maneuvers along the train cars for most of the second act, which Wein unwisely uses to supplement action. When the action does come, it is usually pretty sloppy – like a shootout in the cafeteria car that plays more like an amateur action scene staged by third graders.

Things do come together somewhat in the end, with a decently-choreographed showdown between Genesse and Mitchum (if you ignore one extremely lazy somersault by Genesse). However, the resolution has some bizarre details that should not be given away, because they are probably the biggest laughs one will have in the whole movie.

Camp value seems to be the most redeeming factor about this B-movie, and in that department it consistently delivers. If it could have delivered some good action among the camp, it would have been in better form. But, as any B-movie buffs knows well, asking for both is asking for too much.

I am only guessing when I say this, but I think that this particular Nu Image movie was formed with the producers saying to the writer, "We have a lot of stock footage from past Nu Image movies. Write a screenplay that will enable us to use all of it." I say this, because DEATH TRAIN is just *packed* with obvious stock footage. Not only did I recognize some of the footage from other Nu Image movies, but the stock footage often does not match the newly shot footage! (The bulk of the movie was shot in Bulgaria, while the stock footage came from movies shot in South Africa.) With such laziness and cost-cutting, it shouldn't come as a surprise that the rest of the movie is very lacking. Bryan Genesse is very bland as the hero. And even though these bad guys are a lot more sadistic than you usually get in movies like this, they are otherwise lacking a lot of color as well. The action is mostly dull shootings, not taking any real inspiration from the source material, UNDER SIEGE 2. And while the movie is taking place in Mexico, there is only one character in the entire movie that looks Mexican. While I did stay to the end because I was curious as to how things would be wrapped up, I can tell you that the payoff is definitely not worth slogging through all the cheap and uninspired events happening before it.

With a budget of $27.00, by the looks of it.

Ok, it's only March but I'm willing to guarantee this will be the worst movie I see this year (Christ, I hope it is!)

It's obvious the makers of this flick looked at the basic premise and format from DIE HARD, and simply transferred it onto a train, believing that all they then had to do was have the good guy and bad guys shooting at each other for 90 minutes and the magic (and profit) of DIE HARD would be repeated. Wrong. DIE HARD was a successful fusion of blockbuster spectacle and sublime classical narrative that has yet to be repeated, whereas DEATH ON A TRAIN is just a bunch of bad actors shooting at each other.

The acting in this movie is terrible throughout, although it is difficult to see how even an accomplished actor could make anything of the cliched, expletive-strewn lines this lot are forced to utter. Bryan Genesse, as our hero, flits around in a long leather coat for the duration - he looks very cool, but it's hardly the attire of choice for an action hero repeatedly clambering over a train. He is also as bad a shot as the villains - the movie is crammed with interminable gunfights in which nobody fires anywhere near their opponent. And Bentley Mitchum, looking a bit like a chubby Tim Curry, is simply horrible as the villain. So over the top is his performance, it has a dreadful sort of fascination that compels you to keep watching until the bitter end, just to see how much worse his over-acting can get.

If you value your sanity steer clear of this movie.

Hammy acting and non-personality stereotypes proliferate to the end. It really should have been made as a cartoon . Not to mention the mini sub-plots borrowed from a dozen different disaster movies. That's half the problem - it started off as an interesting little action/crime film, but quickly degenerated into a disaster picture. Still, since I was smoking a spliff at the time, I at least had a good laugh out of it.