Well Deserved Praise

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

Jack Wild is back! Why, exactly, we don't know, but this time he's Wilder than ever, because the ultimate action star of our time has stepped in to fill the shoes of T.I.G., who clearly headed for the hills when he had the chance - JUDGE REINHOLD. He truly is Judge, jury and executioner as the Close Talker himself shoots, blows up, stabs, snaps the necks of and expertly executes his Reinhold-Fu on the baddies! He's not in one of those 80's switcheroo movies this time. Reinhold is the ultimate cop on the ultimate edge, and it was clearly perfect casting for the angry and disgruntled Jack Wild. Rather than get any name remotely associated with the action genre (and there were plenty of them around during the video store era, as we're always talking about), it was someone's idea - and the following words were probably said - "let's get Judge Reinhold!" Thankfully, he accepted, and the rest is movie history. More producers should think out of the box when it comes to action casting. The Crackerjack box. Ha. But seriously, they should.The plot concerns some sort of "financial planning train ride", which isn't at all a contrivance, where some of the world's richest people are all on board. Jack Wild's girlfriend, who naturally is the gorgeous Carol Alt, because even though Jack is a cop, the planet's most beautiful women can't hold themselves back from him, is the lead financial planner on this silly, unnecessary train voyage. In the universe's least-surprising plot twist, a ponytailed, typically-Eurotrash baddie named Hans Becker (Roden) (making him some sort of cross between Alan Rickman and Ted Danson as a grumpy doctor) hijacks the train and holds the passengers hostage (hence the title Hostage Train). Then the MAIN baddie, the creatively named Smith (Sarrazin) steps in, and using state of the art 90's tech, proceeds to steal money from/torture/kill the passengers. Only ONE man - one tough, brave, macho, heroic man - can save his girlfriend and the other passengers. And jokers are WILD.Utter silliness and weapons-grade, uncut ridiculousness ensue as Judge Reinhold fights his way through the proceedings. Every cliché is present and accounted for on the time-honored roll call, from the abandoned warehouse fights, to the sought-after Disc that contains all the information, to the token female baddie (Brozova), and so much more. The only difference this time is that our hero is Reinholding on to the bottom of the flying helicopter, instead of the standard hold.Of course, this is the classic video store-era genre we call the "DieHardInA" movie (this time in a train tunnel), but all those other Die Hard knockoffs don't have a pantsless Judge Reinhold casually in bed, looking on the computer, and, ickily, fighting the baddies. Pantsless. WHY? While train-based action movies can range from enjoyable, such as The Millionaire's Express (1986), to downright awful, such as Derailed (2002), to Seagal, such as Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (1995), none of the aforementioned movies have the panache, the joie d'vivre if you will, of Crackerjack 2. Even towards the end of the movie when things become more standard, Reinhold's non-stop funny facial expressions carry the movie. From moment one, he's constantly bugging out his eyes and screwing up his face. His muggings are truly priceless. And we laughed for a good 100 minutes. Where else will you get that? The closest analogue to this movie is Airborne (1998), where Steve Guttenberg tried to - nay - BECAME an action star.Guttenberg and Reinhold even try the same way of speaking, in a hilariously futile attempt to seem tough. I.e., speaking in a low, but gravelly tone. Add to all of this some humorously horrendous explosion effects and train/helicopter miniatures, and there you have it. The director, Robert Lee, even directed another DieHardInA movie two years before this - complete with the word "Jack" in the title, Cyberjack (1995). It's basically the same movie, plotwise. But that one has Dudikoff. In case you weren't paying attention, this one has Judge Reinhold. Draw your own conclusions.Simply put, Hostage Train, or Crackerjack 2, or whatever, is the funniest comedy not labeled a comedy that you'll find. See it soon if you want to laugh.For more action insanity, drop by: www.comeuppancereviews.com

**SPOILERS BELOW***This is another project by the team of Lloyd A. Simandl and Christopher Hyde from North American Pictures. What does this mean? It means that you should expect bad dialogue, bad acting (with a few exceptions), stereotypical villains, bad plot, at least one lesbian scene, and numerous scenes of torture. Just for your information, Crackerjack 2 has absolutely nothing to do with parts 1 or 3. The only small similarity is that the lead character's first name is Jack. In the first two it's Jack Wild, and in the third one it's Jack Thorn. Now let's get to the plot. The good guy, Jack Wild (Judge Reinhold), has been tracking terrorist Hans Becker (Karel Roden) for a long time. Becker killed his wife in a car bomb, so Jack feels strong hatred for this guy and wants to catch him badly. In the meanwhile, Jack's wife Dana (Carol Alt) goes on a business trip with many rich people in a train in the rocky mountains, and the train gets hijacked by Becker and his crew. Everyone gets taken hostage. Then we discover that the mastermind of the whole operation is not Becker, but a mysterious man named Smith, played by Michael Sarrazin.Smith and his bisexual sidekick Jasmine (Katerina Brozova) then inflict various types of pain upon their rich hostages to try to get their account numbers and extract large sums of money. In the end, Jack saves many people, rescues his wife, and kills the bad guys. Now, the acting in this film is bad, except for Carol Alt and Michael Sarrazin. Judge Reinhold is good at some points, but he's not as serious as he should be. The rest of the cast acts very amateurish if that's a good way to describe it. The "special effects" are horrible, and the explosions are done very badly. Although you might not expect it, this movie is not boring. In fact, it is entertaining. Even though the "quality" is very very cheap, and as I said, the plot overused and the acting very bad, this movie can be a good rent some night when you run out of ideas on what film to watch. The only thing I would like to know is how Michael Sarrazin got to be in this film?? He is a good actor and really shouldn't be doing garbage movies. I would really like to know how he got this role. Judge Reinhold too for that matter. How does Lloyd Simandl get these people? It's a mystery.Other titles similar to this one are "Final Conflict" and basically every other movie by Lloyd Simandl. Even though this one was not directed by Simandl, he was the producer, and that is why it is what it is. Although "Robert Lee" directed this one, I can't tell the difference. This movie gets a 4 out of 10 from me, almost a 5 because it is entertaining. But on a "quality" level or "acting" level, it gets about a 1 or 2. If you're looking for something "serious," then I don't recommend this title. However if you're looking for something entertaining and fun, then this you might like.

It's not the greatest movie ever made in this kind of topic in fact it's not even the most original movie made with this kind of topic.The one and only original we have ever seen of this was Die Hard and personally if you plan to see this don't.Just go and hire a copy of Die Hard instead.Now how many other movies like this have there been, well too many if you ask me. And this one is almost a clone of another train movie "Under Siege 2."The lead character played by Judge Rienhold was more funny then serious and there were a lot of scenes you would have picked from other movies with maybe one or two that seemed totally out of place such as the female terrorist trying to get friendly with one of the young ladies who was revealing way, too much through see through panties and I saw thisin prime time... How the censors let that through I'll be damned if I know.... But even that was not enough to save this pile of s**t from being a good movie. It was just thrown in there and didn't go anywhere and was not part of the story.....4/10

There have been many Die Hard Clones, since that one appeared.. Both low and high budget ones.. Con Air, Sudden Death and to some degree Speed. They all had some kind of variation.. That can't be said about this one, which also is extremely low-budget.We all know the basic story-line of Die Hard. Bad guys takes people in a building hostage, a policeman with his girlfriend among the hostages happens to be inside.Hostage Train follows the plot exactly. They are so similar that you almost think they've even used the same screenplay. While Bruce Willis is both fun and tough, Judge Reinhold aren't exactly that much of a character to pull that off. In fact, when he tries to be fun, he's boring, and the only time he is fun, is when he tries to be a tough action-hero. The same counts with most other actors appearing in this movie, except for Carol Alt as the Girlfriend and the boss bad guy.The action scenes really show that this is low budget, with matted in fire etc, and everything expensive happening outside of the frame. Not even if you have seen Die Hard, I doubt this makes anyone happy, and why choose to see this one, when you as well can pick up Die Hard and see one of the best action-movies ever done.