Dave-640
Joined Aug 1999
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Dave-640's rating
Denzel Washington is a good actor without doubt - I've enjoyed his work ever since St. Elsewhere. But because his characters are always of such stong moral conviction I had a really hard time believing him as a badass. Because he doesn't disappear into the character - as did Al Pacino in Scarface or Morgan Freeman in Street Smart or Harvey Keitel in The Bad Lieutenant - I spent much of the movie trying to believe that Washington was this bad guy, and ultimately couldn't do it. Ethan Hawke was surprisingly good as the rookie, and the plot is good, though the Russian thing seemed underdeveloped and contrived - why exactly did Washington own them the money? I'd recommend the movie, but it won't be remembered as Washington's best work.
Gene Wilder has uncovered something suspicious, but he can't stay on the train, and the people he encounters while repeatedly trying to catch and re-board the train make this a genuinely funny film. Wilder's pairing with Richard Pryor is perfect: Pryor's street-smart car thief is fresh, fast, and funny - something that was missing in his subsequent pairings with Wilder. Wilder's naieve, quiet book editor is the perfect straight man for Pryor's antics. The Sheriff, the pilot, and even Ned Beatty are great characters, and Richard Kiel is good in his last pre-Jaws role (which wrecked him, IMHO). Finally, Gene Wilder's shoe-polish-in-the-bathroom scene has got to be one of the 10 funniest things ever filmed.
A refreshing creation in this era of over-produced, under-written movies.The plot is quite simple, yet this simplicity is what makes the characters' experience SO chilling. You essentially know the outcome (that they were never seen again), so the movie teases your anticipation of their demise. When it arrives, the final realization of what happened is as creepy as their journey to that end.