Runaway Train
Tags: allegory, suspenseful, violence

Plot synopsis:
The story follows the escape of two men from an Alaska prison, the efforts of a railroad dispatch office to safely stop the out-of-control train they are on, and the hunt by their warden to recapture them.
Oscar "Manny" Manheim is a ruthless bank robber and hero to the convicts of Stonehaven Maximum Security Prison. After two previous escape attempts, the doors to Manny's cell were welded shut for three years. A court order compels Manny's nemesis, the vindictive and sadistic Associate Warden Ranken, to release him back into the general prison population. Manny intends to break out a third time with his older brother Jonah, but he is forced to set his escape plan into action in the middle of winter after Ranken employs a serial killer to stab him. Jonah stabs his attacker to death in retaliation and in turn is severely beaten by a prison guard, leaving him in a high-security hospital wing.
Manny has to leave his brother behind. He recruits Buck McGeehy, who was convicted of statutory rape and who works in the prison's laundry room, to smuggle him out in a trolley. Buck decides to join Manny in the escape, even though Manny wants to go it alone. After a freezing cross-country hike (involving a 300 ft (100 m) drop into a river and subsequent swim) the two hop on board a train consisting of four locomotives at a remote Alaskan rail yard.
Both men enter the fourth unit and stow away in the toilet compartment. Just as the train starts to move, the elderly engineer suffers a heart attack. In attempting to stop the train and get off, he does not set the throttle to idle, instead engaging the brakes, before collapsing off the still-moving train. This overrides the engine's automatic train stop. Consequently, the locomotives overpower the brakes, burning their shoes off and making it impossible to stop the train. Neither of the two convicts is aware of what has happened.
As the driverless train accelerates, dispatchers Dave Prince and Frank Barstow are alerted to the situation. Unaware of the failure of the brakes, Barstow authorizes employees to allow the runaway out onto the mainline, arrogantly insisting that a computer-controlled system of his creation will automatically apply the brakes on the locomotives. After the last of the brake shoes burn off and the dispatchers realize the severity of their situation, they try to keep the tracks clear. The runaway subsequently smashes through the caboose of a freight train that was in the act of moving out of its path. The collision badly damages the cab of the lead locomotive and jams the front door of the second engine, an old EMD F-unit. The convicts on board are now aware something is seriously wrong. Barstow realizes that the locomotive's over-speed control must have been disabled in the crash. Learning that the train's excessive speed will most probably collapse an old railroad trestle ahead and believing that no one alive is on board, Barstow's superior Eddie McDonald orders him to derail the train.
At this point the train's horn blows, alerting the signal maintainer and the convicts that someone is present on the train. Barstow orders a reversal of the switch. The train continues towards the old Seneca trestle, where emergency workers are gathering in expectation of a disaster. Ranken concludes that his two escaped convicts are fleeing by rail and makes his way to the dispatcher's office. Meanwhile, the two fugitives in the rear locomotive are alarmed when they are discovered by the only other person left on the train, a locomotive hostler named Sara, who clambered back to their location in the belief that she would be safer in the event of another collision. They realize that the train is out of control and that she had sounded the horn from the second locomotive.
Sara convinces the convicts that jumping off the train at its current speed would be suicidal and explains that the only way to stop the train would be to climb into the lead engine and press its emergency fuel cut off switch, a near-impossible feat since the second locomotive is a "carbody" F-unit with no forward catwalk. Its nose door, which would normally allow access to the lead engine, has been jammed from the collision with the freight train. They are, however, able to slow the train somewhat by disconnecting the MU cables connected to the two rear locomotives, shutting them down and slowing the train enough for it to cross the Seneca trestle despite going much faster than the bridge's speed rating.
The dispatchers divert the runaway onto a branch after determining it is only five minutes away from a head-on collision with a passenger train. This is only a brief respite, as further ahead the branch negotiates a tight curve adjacent to a chemical plant. Even at its reduced speed, the runaway is likely to derail on this curve and trigger a major chemical spill. His hand forced, Barstow agrees that they must switch the runaway onto a stub-ended siding and crash it, thus condemning the three people on the train to almost certain death, rather than risk a catastrophic chemical explosion. Warden Ranken forces Barstow's to help him reach the train by helicopter.
Manny shows an increasingly violent streak, repeatedly asserting his dominance over Buck. He tries to force Buck into a suicidal scramble around the outside of the second engine's frozen nose although Buck has already tried once and failed. Sara's intervention on Buck's behalf forces an armed face-off between the two convicts who threaten to kill one another. Emotionally broken, all three slump into a fatalistic depression in the F-unit's cab. Suddenly Ranken's accomplice crashes through the second engine's window and is killed after unsuccessfully trying to board the lead engine via helicopter. Ranken has now caught up with the train.
Spurred on by the appearance of his arch-enemy and resolved not to return to prison, even if it means his own death, Manny makes a perilous leap from the F-unit's broken windshield to the lead engine. He barely makes it, crushing his hand between the knuckle couplers in the process. Ranken meanwhile has boarded the locomotive from the helicopter. Manny ambushes him as he enters the cab and handcuffs him inside the locomotive. Ranken orders Manny to stop the train before it crashes at the end of the siding, but Manny has chosen to die and take the warden with him rather than be recaptured. When reminded of Buck and Sara in the second engine, Manny tells Ranken, ‘Oh no. It's just you and me!’, and proceeds to detach the lead locomotive from the rest of the train.
He waves goodbye, ignoring Buck's screaming pleas to shut down the lead engine, and climbs onto the roof of the lone engine in the freezing cold and blowing snow, his arms stretched out, ready to meet his end. A series of cross-cuts show Buck and Manny's fellow inmates mourning in their cells at Stonehaven, as the lone engine disappears into the snow storm. The film closes with an on-screen quote from William Shakespeare's Richard III:
"No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity."
"But I know none, and therefore am no beast."

Review: And also there's the hunt by the sadistic prison warden who is hellbent on recapturing the fleeing convicts.Relentless and engrossing action film from start to finish, Runaway Train boasts two Oscar nominated performances from John Voight {Manny} and Eric Roberts {Buck} and no little intelligence with its well scripted characters.
The stock title promises action and suspense, and we get that, but with a story by Akira Kurosawa, expert direction by Russian émigré Andrei Konchalovsky and superior lensing by Alan Hume, we get a study of what defines a man.John Voight and the vastly underrated Eric Roberts play two cons who escape from a hellish gulag and board a train with no driver.
Ryan as a prison warden who risks death to return his charges to custody, but the movie belongs to Voight and Roberts who both bring tremendous humanity to their finely sketched characters.The final image is as powerful as cinema gets and marks RUNAWAY TRAIN as a modest masterpiece.Though often criticized for producing cheap rubbish, the Cannon Group, in fact, also produced many fine films including this, 52 PICK-UP and MARIA'S LOVERS (also Konchalovsky)..
Everything about this film has a surreal, visceral, in-your-face quality; the anguished, violent intensity of the prison scenes, the frozen wastelands of the lands outside the prison (gee, a metaphor?), the train -- not just a lifeless machine but a huge, juggernaut-like beast -- that the title refers to, the fierce, animalistic performance by Jon Voight, who plays the character of Manny with such raw emotion and conviction that at no moment do we doubt that he is anything other than what he appears to be on screen.It's based on a screenplay by the legendary Akira Kurosawa -- knowing this makes a lot of the elements a bit more familiar; the snow, the hopelessness, the apocalyptic atmosphere -- and it's directed by Russian Andrei Konchalovsky, who after this film directed two Hollywood embarrassments called "Homer & Eddie" and "Tango & Cash" (apparently trying to corner the market on ampersands), and most recently helmed the acclaimed Armand Assante mini-series "The Odyssey" for television.
"Runaway Train" is not a perfect film, some of the minor supporting performances are really awful and some viewers may find Eric Roberts to be irritating, but the sheer kineticism, among the other stronger elements, makes it worthwhile.
The two main characters, played by Jon Voight as Manny and Eric Roberts as Buck, are escaped prisoners, but they are humanized.
But as soon as the guys break out, the fun begins - Eric Roberts' accent, the incredible feeling of cold, Manny's animal-like grunting (I think he was laughing) - and the pumping, spot-on soundtrack, raising goose-bumps beautifully as the train majestically appears through a thick flurry of snow like a ghost ...One scene - Jon Voight's "..
Action (train crashes!!), blood (fingers!!), surprises, satisfying revenge - and an ending that, I'm sorry but I've got to go on about it a bit, is just simply breathtaking.How I wanted the movie to end on that final shot, and how wonderful that it did, with the choir and everything.
'Runaway Train' is a rare thing, an intelligent action movie, full of both exciting sequences and strong character development.
Jon Voight gives one of his very best performances as Manny, but Eric Roberts is also just great.
Roberts is good, but he's basically playing second fiddle to Voight's hulking, frightening, feral, almost mythical Manny, a con so dangerous the warden has kept him in solitary confinement for three years straight.Roberts is a younger convict who idolizes Manny and helps him escape from the Alaskan prison where they both reside.
"Runaway Train" is hardly a perfect film  as others have mentioned, there are plenty of things here that feel tacked on, implausible, or even ridiculous (the Captain Ahab of a villain risking his own life to destroy his enemy, the silly riot scenes in the prison, the over-the-top speechifying and florid epigraph at the end credits, etc., etc.).
At its best, "Runaway Train" reminded me of "Night of the Living Dead" or another great people-trapped-in-a-little-room suspense film, and it's worth the effort for most viewers.
It is "imprisoned" in a braid of rails, designed here to relate to the train as the remarkable prison building is to the humans.All the cameras are static except the ones following the train, some of which race through the woods the same way we saw in "Rashoman."It seems that like with "Star Wars," Kurosawa can bless a film by merely breathing on it.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching..
Runaway train starts as a prison escape movie, it then becomes a high speed action thriller.
This is film as art, for as entertaining and suspenseful as Runaway train is, it is metaphorically and visually a beautiful film and Jon Voight gives the performance of his career (was nominated for lead Oscar) as a brutal, savage multiple felon.Runaway train is directed by Russian Andrei Konchalovsky, based on a screenplay by Kurasawa ("Seven Samurai") and takes place in Alaska, first in a high security prison, and later on the title train.
An infamous prisoner, Manny (John Voight) has been incarcerated in a high security prison (somewhere in Alaska it seems).The warder (John P Ryan) is resolved to break any man who dares to defy his brutal regime, while Manny believes he can prevail against anything which man, or indeed nature, can throw at him.A dangerously edgy Eric Roberts is determined to share in the glory of Manny's bid for escape, but while our two protagonists seek to break the system, it seems fate, chance, life, call it what you will, has other ideas.There is a surprise, and very welcome, appearance by a toned down Rebecca DeMornay, and strangely her performance is typical of the film.
Manny knows his own chances have gone; he is aware however there is a slim - albeit remote - chance for a young man like Buck to still make something of himself.I was reminded while watching this film how quickly time can pass.
Manny would be proud of him.RUNAWAY TRAIN is a film of rare power, which leaves its mark on your mind and your heart, all under the guise of an action thriller.
Developed from an un-filmed Akira Kurosawa script by Djordje Milicevic, Paul Zindel, and former hardened inmate Eddie Bunker, Runaway Train proves that action movies can do a hell of a lot more than blow s**t up and offer amusing one-liners.Notorious convict Manny (Jon Voight) is released from three years in confinement by hateful warden Ranken (John P.
As despicable as these characters often are, Manny and Buck are real, helped considerably by the career-best performances of Voight and Roberts.
They may just rule the world if they could hold down a job, but they can't, they're criminals, and cannot escape their societal role.The appearance of Rebecca De Mornay's character Sara, a young engineer still aboard and who is unable to stop the train, highlights this.
RUNAWAY TRAIN is one of only a few films which are so great that you'll like the people involved in it for the rest of their career regardless in which movies they appear in the future.
Walter Hill's underrated STREETS OF FIRE did this to Willem Dafoe, Diane Lane and even Michael Pare while RUNAWAY TRAIN did the same to John Voight, Rebecca DeMornay and even Eric Roberts.I find it interesting that a film written by a Japanese (Akira Kurosawa!) and directed by a Russian (Andrej Konchalowsky) which features American actors can be such a coherent masterpiece.
The whole thing feels like a parody of itself and expects you to hate every player by the way they scream and yell at each other over every little dumb plot-hole in every numb minded scene.Only good points are the music, which so outweighs the script it makes you a bit sad to see it so wasted, and the action cinematography shows the racing train pretty well.
What starts of as a brutal prison riot soon turns into something much more dramatic as two inmates escape and find themselves on an out of control train, with only themselves and a single railroad employee on board.This is a thriller with a difference though, as it's also a fascinating character study.
I don't think I could dislike the movie that gave us both Machete and Zeus.In all seriousness though, Runaway Train might just be the best film to come out from the crap-factory known as Cannon Group.
Jon Voight and Eric Roberts might provide the best performances I've seen from either one in a chilling setting that beautifully emphasizes the desperation of the characters in both their current predicament and life in general.In addition to compelling cinematography, this Cannon film also surprises the viewer with yet another aspect sorely missing in many of their films: character development.
Before the Cannon Group documentary Electric Boogaloo I don't remember any mention of it, even though I've scanned quite some of their catalogue in search of "so bad it's good" b-movies (and boy, do they deliver that in a steaming pile!)However, Runaway Train is in a completely different category, and despite some minor flaws I do heartily recommend it to anyone even vaguely interested in it.
Yes, RUNAWAY TRAIN is an absolute powerful film, definitely an outstanding piece of work, bleak, brutal, very clever too, with an unforgettable symphony of performances.
Directed by Andrei Konchalovsky, "Runaway Train" is one If the most under rated movies of the 80's.Plot In A Paragraph: Oscar "Manny" Manheim is a "lifer" and hero to the convicts of Stonehaven Maximum Security Prison.
Both Jon Voight and Eric Roberts were Oscar nominated for this movie, and were both unlucky not to win, as both were superb.
Andrei Konchalovsky directed this existentialist prison/action-adventure yarn that stars Jon Voight as popular and hardened prisoner Manny Manheim, who is a fearless fighter, and constant source of trouble for warden Ranken(played by John P.
He is also idolized by a young prisoner named Buck(played by Eric Roberts) who is enlisted by Manny in his daring escape attempt, which succeeds, but being that it is winter in Alaska, they will have to find shelter soon, so steal a train that becomes a runaway, as the authorities(led by Ranken) have ordered it switched to a dead end rail line, but that doesn't deter Manny, though the unexpected presence of railway worker Sara(played by Rebecca De Mornay) gives Buck second thoughts, Manny proves to be as unstoppable as the train...
Certainly "Runaway Train" is an extremely prestigious production for Menahem Golan, Yoram Globus, and the Cannon Group, which for the most part was cranking out pure entertainment during the 1980s.Voight plays Oscar "Manny" Manheim, hardened veteran convict who breaks out of an isolated maximum security prison located in Alaska.
After safe cracker Oscar Manheim (Jon Voight) and tag-along Buck (Eric Roberts) escape from an Alaska prison, they jump onto a train whose engineer suddenly dies of a heart attack.
Andrey Konchalovskiy's Runaway Train, based on a script by Akira Kurosawa, is a tour de force blizzard of action heroics, ponderous moments of thought provoking character interaction, and two blistering lead performances that have yet to this day to be topped.
It's about two convicts- Jon Voight (unusually great in a bad-ass role of a lifetime) and Eric Roberts (also unusually great, though not at all subtle, as a dim-wit who follows along for the ride)- who hop onto a train after making an escape from an Alaskan prison.
Only one liability- a heavy-handed synth-score from Trevor Jones- keeps it from being a truly great thriller.So strap in with some cool characters (Manny truly is the closest Voight got to play a really juicy villain, with Buck allowing Roberts to get a little depth to an otherwise spotty choice of roles), and action that has likely none of today's comforts (i.e. CGI), with a thought provoking roller-coaster (yeah, went there with that description) that hasn't dated too much since its 1985 release.
This works for me as a tough guy movie on the level of "The Dirty Dozen," "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," or "Dirty Harry." Like those films, it appeals to my base nature but also does so in a way that is notable for its quality.
No wonder that "Runaway Train" became one of the truly greatest action movies of the 1980's (and arguably of all times), since this production gathered great cinematic talent from three different continents!
Like many reviewers already righteously pointed out, "Runaway Train" really distinguishes itself from the vast majority of action movies thanks to its detailed and intelligent character drawings.
Jon Voight and Eric Roberts deliver the best performances of their careers and deservedly received Oscar nominations, but there are plentiful of terrific names in the cast that also earn some praise, like the villainous John P.
Thank goodness for films like Runaway Train.The story deals with two hard-nosed Alaska prison escapees who jump on a small, but powerful string of about four engines and a caboose.
These people act like the Keystone Cops in their attempts to bring the train under control, and the light-hearted manner with which their characters are written is out of place in this film.
Jon Voight and Eric Roberts star as Manny and Buck, two escaped convicts from a maximum security Alaskan prison who hop a train in their quest for freedom but the engineer drops dead of a heart attack and the only other person around is an maintenance engineer named Sara played by Rebecca Demornay who is inept at solving the problem of a brake less locomotive racing through the Alaskan landscape at 90 mph.
He knew that this was the only way he was going to achieve victory.The actor's performances - Jon Voight and Eric Roberts - are phenomenal and it is no surprise that they were oscar nominated.
Terrific cold, desolate atmosphere, and very good performances by Jon Voight and Eric Roberts.The movie starts out a little strange, with bizarre acting, and strange sound recording.
On the face of it, RUNAWAY TRAIN looks like a superficial thriller: it starts off with a prison break and then moves to the out-of-control speeding locomotive stuff, throwing in plenty of suspense and stunts along the way.
RUNAWAY TRAIN is a very good film, and the reason for that is in the well drawn characters, in particular Jon Voight's long-term con.
During his various monologues I realised I was watching a performance of greatness.Eric Roberts is a bit harder to stomach, playing a slow-witted character who's there as a foil for Voight.
Nonetheless, RUNAWAY TRAIN makes up for these shortcomings with well drawn, realistic characters, superb meditations on the nature of man and one of the best, most chilling endings I've ever seen in a film, a literally hair-rising shot that will stay with me for a long time to come..
Excellent actioner starring Jon Voight and Eric Roberts as escaped prisoners in Alaska who hop on a train.
Voight and Roberts are both very over-the-top, but it fits well with the movie so I really liked both performances.
at one point in the movie Roberts asks "Why this train?" to which Voight replies "Because I want".
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 ".
How "Runaway Train" bombed at the box office in December, 1985, I'll never know because it's the perfect blend of blockbuster thrills and weighty subtext.The story involves Manny (Jon Voight), a notorious prison hero, who escapes a maximum security prison in the frozen wastelands of Alaska.
I like this movie for the performances by all the principals: Voight, Roberts, DeMornay and Ryan.
During this escape you learn more and more about the two characters (excellent playing by Eric Roberts and Jon Voight!!).
When Runaway Train was produced, the action genre was undergoing a change from character-driven movies to pyrotechnics-based flicks.
The real power of this film is to be found in the acting of John Voight, who plays a selfdestructive person, the likes I have rarely seen on the silver screen.
Jon Voight and Eric Roberts are superb as two escaped convicts finding themselves trapped on a train with no brakes and nobody driving.
A movie I thought I'd be able to make fun of (I just couldn't see myself taking Jon Voight seriously in the photos and brief snippets I'd seen) and ended up liking quite a bit.Voight and Eric Roberts play escaped convicts who end up on the runaway train of the title with a female train worker (Rebecca DeMornay) as a kind-of hostage.
On its own merits RUNAWAY TRAIN is an unlikely story but watchable enough because of Eric Roberts and Jon Voight`s performances neither of whom decide to let the word subtle stand in their way , and that`s what makes their performances so watchable.
An action film, based on a story by the great Akira Kurosawa, featuring one of the most intense performances by Jon Voight and a superb performance by the much missed Rebecca DeMornay.
Jon Voight gives the best performance of his career, Eric Roberts is great, and the movie builds an onrushing momentum that ends nobly.
The music is atmospheric and works very well.One of my all-time favorites Jon Voight makes on of his best performance in his long career, he can make ANY character believable and likeable.
The cinematography is second only to the powerful performances by Voight, Roberts, and De Mornay.Set in the mountains during winter on a vintage runaway train, two convicts struggle with harsh life in a maximum security prison and in the real world.