Aedonerre I gave this film a 9 out of 10, because it was exactly what I expected it to be.

Twilightfa Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

Murphy Howard I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Leoni Haney Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

antoniocasaca123 The film "Runaway Train" is one of the greatest mysteries of the seventh art. No doubt this movie is a real case study. I would love to know a lot more about how everything happened in this movie, but unfortunately the DVD edition I have does not have any extras other than a trailer. That is, the "mystery" that constitutes this film remains to be unveiled. How does a masterpiece come about in a film by an unknown Russian in the West (he still had in the US the previous year's "Maria's Lovers"), working with American actors, based on an argument by Japanese master Akira Kurosawa, written to three, including Edward Bunker, an actor who takes part in the film as a prisoner and who in real life spent much of his life in prison and being produced by the duo Golan-Globus, producers who bet on purely commercial films with Chuck Norris and company, many of them B-series, without any tip of interest in investing in characters full of emotions, humanism (in good and bad sense) and existentialism? at one point in the movie Roberts asks "Why this train?" to which Voight replies "Because I want". It is in this instinctive and animalistic way that the destiny of the characters is traced. I also ask: why this so improbable combination of people so different, even in their own nationalities, have joined in this project? Was it also destiny? the duality between the blockbuster and the arthouse makes the film extremely innovative and captivating, a true work of art. I would say that this is a unique case of film, throughout the history of cinema, that manages to perfectly combine, in an inexplicably superb way, concepts of "super-commercial cinema" with "poetry-art cinema". I've been asking myself these questions for 30 years after I've seen the movie 30 times. Most likely, to my sadness, never see them answered and never see unveiled this "mystery." Jon Voight has the best interpretation of his career here. He has notable roles in other films such as "deliverance", "midnight cowboy" and others, has been nominated several times for the Oscar for Best Actor, even won one, but this is, for me, the "role of his life" ( and also in this movie he was nominated for Oscar but did not win). To tell you more, Voight's acting in this film is among the best interpretations I have ever seen in film history. But also Eric Roberts and Rebecca De Mornay have both in this movie the best interpretations of their careers. Rebecca De Mornay was not unfairly nominated for the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. She was known to the public at this time because of the success of the risky business film, made 2 years earlier, which she stars alongside Tom Cruise. "Runaway Train" is perhaps the only film of her career in which she appears without any make-up, half "messed up", playing a role of this type that has nothing to do with her usual "femme fatale" characters. She is superb, brilliant and more beautiful than ever (even without makeup). Eric Roberts (the only nomination he had in his Oscar career) is also fantastic, lending credence to his naive character with a slight mental inhibition. Konchalovsky's achievement is brilliant. The train looks like a living character in the movie. The music of Trevor Jones is fabulous. The final one is anthology. The scene in which the three characters disintegrate and fight inside the train is to memory. The final sentence of the film is fabulous, anything like "Even the most ferocious animal feels some pity. But I am not a ferocious animal, I am a human being, and therefore I do not feel any pity, "although for me this phrase goes in contradiction (possibly purposeful) with the film. This is because even John Ryan, the prison's director and the most "inhuman" character in the film, has in the end a moment of "humanism." It is he who, realizing his fate, remembers Roberts and De Mornay and tells Voight "What about that punk and the girl?", "Saving" in this way these two characters because Voight responds to him "Oh no, it's just you and me ". In fact, there are many anthology dialogues throughout the film, those kind of dialogues that we never forget. Writing about them would give a book, so much is the beauty and ambiguity of them, so much they stimulate us to think about its meaning. It was a shame the film went quite unnoticed. But, after more than 30 years, I notice that, little by little, the film is gaining status as a "cult movie". I just wanted to see some of the actors in the movie talking about how it all came out, how it all happened. As I have already mentioned, a combination of these arises once in life, or rather, arises once in the history of cinema. And this (cinema) was born long before me and will have a life much longer than mine.

Tweekums Opening in a brutal prison in the frozen wilds of Alaska where the sadistic warden, Ranken, has been ordered to release Oscar "Manny" Manheim from the cell that he hasn't left for three years. Ranken goads him to try to escape… and he does, along with fellow prisoner Buck McGeehy. Once out they make it to a rail yard and board a train. Not long after it starts but before the locomotives are connected to the freight cars the driver has a heart attack and collapses… they are on a runaway! The train starts to accelerate and the railway workers try to figure out what to do; they have no idea that anybody is aboard. Manny thinks that something is wrong but it isn't until they smash through the tail of another train that is being moved out of the way that they realise just how serious it is. Soon afterwards it emerges that somebody else is on the train; rail employee, Sara. She doesn't know how to stop the train but has a basic understanding of how the locomotives work so comes up with a plan to slow the train down. As the train hurtles from one near catastrophe to the next Warden Ranken is closing in on them.This is an exciting ride with one high tension moment after another; this starts long before we've even seen the train. The jail break is thrilling and once aboard the train things only get better. The unstoppable train heading towards certain doom can be seen as a metaphor for Manny and Randen's inevitable final confrontation. The cast does a fine job; Jon Voight really impresses as Manny and Eric Roberts and Rebecca De Mornay provide fine support as Buck and Sara. John P. Ryan is delightfully over the top as Ranken. The film makes fine use of the frozen Alaskan setting and the locomotives are filmed in a way that makes them look more like a menacing beast than items of machinery. There are some fairly stunning moments as well as some that are wince inducing; most notably when a character's fingers are trapped in a buckeye coupling. Overall I'd certainly recommend this to anybody wanting a thrilling film set mostly in one, albeit mobile, location.

Irie212 There is a gripping story here, about survival, but this movie transcends the simple plot-- three people caught on a runaway train, and being chased by authorities. I maintain, with conviction, that this movie is a powerful work of art, which could have been even greater if it didn't suffer from two of Hollywood's most deep- rooted and crippling problems.First, Hollywood's tendency to throw writers at projects. Five men are credited with the story and the screenplay, which originated with the Japanese genius, Akira Kurosawa. There is much more dialog than is needed, especially the motor-mouth stuff coming out of Roberts. It's painful to imagine how great the script might have been if Kurosawa's original screenplay had been adapted by one good writer, or had been translated and only lightly edited.Second, a lesser problem, the cast, which is merely competent-- not bad, but not great. (NB: I am aware that Voight won the Golden Globe for this performance.) Jon Voight and Eric Roberts started out as pretty boys, and however roughed up they are for this movie, they're still too pretty. The roles-- two escaped convicts-- called for character actors, but character actors can't "open" a movie. So we get workmanlike performances from two adequate actors. That's not fatal, but it is unfortunate because the movie would have benefited so much from really first-rate actors who don't look like they could have been male models-- John Lithgow, for instance, or Robert Duvall or Andre Braugher instead of Voight, and Sean Penn or Gary Farmer instead of Roberts. In this vein, it's interesting to note that the film marks the debut of two character actors who are almost always cast as thugs, Tiny Lister and Danny Trejo...Nevertheless, in spite of those things (which may not bother everyone), RUNAWAY TRAIN is a powerful lament about the nature of free will, and efforts to claim control over your inherent character, which is your destiny. The arch-criminal Voight has some good lines, and one great one: He tells Roberts to get a job if they make it to freedom, become a janitor, anything, but Roberts demands, then why don't you do that? And Voight replies with all the pith the dialog otherwise lacks, "I wish I could."He can't. It's not in his nature to do what he believes people need to do, and should do, to be happy. The plot is all played out in savage settings-- a maximum security prison, a below-zero winter. The world these men occupy is hard and cold in every way. They have to literally crawl through an active sewer to escape, and when they do, the old four- engine train Voight chooses becomes a hell on wheels. The only way to control it is to get to the front engine, the brain of the runaway train, but there is no path to it. And the pursuit of them by authorities continues, led by the warden, a character who is written, unfortunately, with no nuance: he's vengeful, evil, cruel. Early on, he announces to the prisoners that in their world he is 2nd only to God-- but he is actually more like Death. Either way, when he catches up to the train (by helicopter), he descends from the sky. Voight, lying in wait, takes control of him, thereby finally wresting power into his own hands, demanding control of his own destiny. But the only power left to him (and to us all, on our individual runaway trains) is the power to choose Death. He chooses to risk dying if it will bring even a few moments of freedom in our cold, hard world.

FilmCriticLalitRao Runaway Train is the true example of what can be termed as the best case of "International collaboration" in the field of cinema. As an American film directed by a Russian director Andrei Konchalovsky with a principal cast of American actors, it was shot in Canada based on a screenplay written by Akira Kurosawa, a renowned Japanese cinema author. Escape films can make their own specialized genre but for "Runaway Train" there is no ordinary escape in sight. Director Konchalovsky depicts the primacy of mind over body. The major highlight of this film is the manner in which many 'spectacular action' scenes have been shot. They give viewers an idea about the suffering experienced by prisoners in a high security American gaol. These scenes are so authentically genuine that they have all the strength to put contemporary CG films to shame. A sense of claustrophobia is developed when this film's three protagonists are left to fend for themselves on a train without a director. What is important for viewers is to watch how this challenge is experienced both inside and outside of the train by key stakeholders ? Lastly, 'Runaway Train' is the perfect film for any viewers who is interested in watching an intelligent action film.