Deidra & Laney Rob a Train

I loved the characters, all of them. Even the outrageous psycho train dick.

Ashleigh Murray plays Deidra, the oldest sister, highly intelligent, valedictorian, the only one in her class with any hopes of getting into a top university. But when her Mother gets thrown into jail in a fit of insanity, Deidra is left to try and pay the bills and her college dreams fade. Food is down to a half bag of potato chips. Social services is pounding on her door, threatening to take her siblings Laney, played by Rachel Crow, and her brother to foster homes.

Deidra comes up with a plan: robbing freight trains that roll by her backyard with her shy little sister, a helmeted teddy bear, and fencing the stuff (detergent as an example, until they learn to read the labels on the crates) wholesale. Through the planning of the robberies and subsequent twists and turns, I fell in love with the two sisters, rooting for them to succeed at every turn.

Sounds heavy, but the movie is light, funny, and lovable. For me, Deidra & Laney is an edge of the midnight movie seat, unable to even take a break to grab a snack, and staying until the last credit rolled movie. And lastly, I appreciated a plot I haven't seen before, in a rural poverty stricken setting, and having mixed race kids as the protagonists.

"Deidra and Laney Rob a Train" is set in a non-descript town where almost no one goes to college, the local rail yard doesn't pay a sustainable wage, and signs of the town's glory days have littered the town's visual landscape. There's a lot of talk lately about showing more people of minority races on TV but this is a film that shows a landscape of economic depression that doesn't discriminate against people of either color. The two protagonists are bi-racial and neither their African-American mother nor their white father can make enough to provide them a brighter future (though points go to mom for trying quite a bit harder).

When the titular characters' mother gets incarcerated, they decide to rob the insides of slow-moving freight trains to raise money for their bail. The film gets interesting when exploring the dangers and logistics of such an act. Like a lot of the film, the appeal is in exploring a corner of Americana that has been right under your eyes most of your life.

Deidra and Laney are astereotpical with the elder sister being an overachiever in school and Laney being angst-filled and Laney filled with a mixture of angst and a desire to fit in. She's bullied quite a bit and these scenes are perhaps the cruelest in the film to stomach if you haven't seen much of this genre. The film is filled with a few familiar faces (Sasheer Zamata of "Saturday Night Live", Missi Pyle, and Tim Blake Nelson) but mostly thrives on new talent and these actresses have a lot of room to surprise us.

It's a worthwhile watch.

It's good to show films of struggles, and situations people face. But it's also a fun comedy, with really great young actors, and charming characters. I enjoyed this film a lot.

Deidra is the oldest sibling, her Mum has just been thrown in jail, bills are mounting up, and she wants to take care of her siblings, and not have them taken into foster care. She's a bright young girl, who has the potential to go to college, but what does she have to do to keep her family together.

I think it manages to raise issues well, but still keep things fun. It was a great watch.

I love my RACHEL in this movie , ever since I saw her singing debut on whatever singing show I saw her on as a child! She is the best ...but other than that... this is a take it or leave it type of flick. The "felon father" was probably the best acting role in the movie imo.

...And I don't care to hear kids cussing...and cussing... and cussing...

This is a weak and uneven script. One sister has some background, yet the other does not have anything. Than you realize the scriptwriter wanted badly to make points with the losers in the audience that will empathize with the character because of bullying. And maybe trick some real reviewers into dropping a word about social issues. The pre production is awfully done. There is a family. But the individuals don't look anything like each other. Only in post production we get the nice parts like the way the title is made in the opening sequence.

And the awful moments of deus ex machina! The two women forget about the state employee visiting, but the apparently uninformed ex dad is there, for the first time in the whole script and he also had the time to clean up. His character might be a slob, but he surely knows how to clean a house with children home alone. And he is always very clean. Yet he is an underachiever.

Anyway, the over 30 characters are clownish.

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