L'homme du train

The great Jean Rochefort plays a mild-mannered old man who's so lonely that as soon as mopey bank robber Johnny Hallyday lets a room in his empty mansion, he simply won't stop talking to him, no matter how little Hallyday says back! Both men are bored with their current lives but are intrigued by the other's.

This slow burner may not be interesting enough for many, certainly not quick enough for most. But its nevertheless a fascinating "little" film and character study. It works in the play between these two men from different worlds, who grow to aspire to see what its like to be the other person. There's no giant twist, no supernatural catch at the end, so don't be expecting it - just enjoy it for the wry, vivid look into the rapport between these two men with nothing in common.

3.5/5. A treat.

We know this film from childhood, but the child has grown. Here we are in a provincial French city when the cowboy rides in on the iron train to transform the life of a citizen, unexpectedly, profoundly.

Jean Rochefort, with his great face of character, about to go for major surgery, a three vessel bypass, a wifeless man of regrets, a retired teacher of literature to secondary students, is about to meet his fantasy: Johnny Hollyday (the Elvis of France?) who plays a bank robber about to perform his retirement job. Meeting by apparent chance, though clearly pre-ordained, the fantasies of the lonely, anxious teacher whose love of poetry might be his most tender trait in an otherwise ruthlessly real view of the world, are set in motion. Hollyday becomes his unexpected guest...the lone hotel is closed for the season...and an excitement comes to Rochefort's life. The man has guns. There is a picture of him looking terribly western in his leather jacket, the enigmatic stranger/cowboy in the mythos of his host. Ah, to be that man, to fire that gun, to live that life of dark adventure.

It goes on to its meaningful end, not told here except to say that the last scene may be an error, a prolongation that was unnecessary and added nothing to the power of the film, nor detracted from the marvelous performance of Rochefort, who can do no wrong with any role, or Hollyday, whose acting turn here is perfect in the Robert Mitchum noir sense, but tinged with an old-world tiredness that is quite moving. All this with fine subsidiary acting, a perfectly murky Simenonoish setting, and Schubert's melancholic sounds. Ah, bon. Tres, tres bon.

This is a beautifully acted and written story of two older men dealing with regret. The dialogue is witty, but never self-conscious and the performances are great. Johnny Hallyday (The Elvis of France!) is especially surprising in his role as the bank robber at the end of his career.

The story is well paced, and unlike a lot of French movies, it's not just a bunch of talking heads, but a real story with compelling characters. The two strangers meet by hazard and forge a close relationship, each trading bits and pieces of their lives. The scene where Jean Roquefort gives Johnny his slippers is a literal manifestation of their efforts to change their lives, albeit late in life.

A lovely little film from beginning to end!

'The Man on the Train' is a beautiful movie about two man later in life. One of them is a bank robber, the other is a teacher. They meet by accident and become friends. Slowly they both start wishing they would have been the other man.

The teacher (Jean Rochefort) knows what the bank robber (Johnny Hallyday) does for his money. He even offers to help, but the day the bank will be robbed he has to go into surgery. We see how the teacher pretends to be a cool guy, even changes his looks to that. We also see how the bank robber pretends to be a teacher when the real teacher is out.

All this leads to an ending that closes things in one way, but leaves things open in another. We feel an ending like this coming, but it still works. It is beautiful and fits the rest of the movie perfectly.

If your favorite movies are like 'The Fast and the Furious' you will probably not like this. It is a real European movie, sometimes slow, most of the time very quiet, but if you can appreciate this kind of film making you will like 'The Man on the Train'.

As we left the theatre someone inevitably said, `that was very French.' And so it was, or at least it was a movie that Hollywood would never have made. Washed-up bank robber meets retired French teacher and they become friends, each hankering after the other's lifestyle. The teacher is facing open-heart surgery, the robber the prospect of a dangerous bank job with three unreliable associates. All this set in a really boring small town in the Rhone Valley (filmed mainly in Annonoy with funding of course from the local Film Commission).

Yet it works. Watching the two principals, Jean Rochefort as the teacher and Johnny Hallyday as the robber is like watching Torvill and Dean – perfect synchronisation, but with humour added. There's not a false move and the script is seamless – it seems quite inevitable that such an improbable relationship could develop. Somehow we don't notice the improbabilities, such as the gang stealing a huge (by French standards) and rare BMW 740 for use as a getaway car the evening before the robbery from a car park in the centre of town, and making no effort to conceal it until the robbery at 10 heurs the next day.

Perhaps the relationship can be explained on the basis that Jean likes to talk and Johnny is content to listen. As they get to know each other Jean becomes quite concerned about his guest and Johnny, for his part, comes to admire his host. He even upbraids Jean's quite pleasant mistress for boring Jean with talk of her children's misdemeanours.

The film ends in a flurry of `maybe things might have been different if…'. You can choose the alternative ending you like in fact, though the fantasy is more palatable that reality. Unlike Hollywood, French filmmakers trust their audience, and it is unlikely too many viewers will feel cheated here.