Wonderful character development!

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

This could have been a passable movie if peopled by unknowns. But, when one sees the names Pierce Brosnan, Patrick Stewart, and Christopher Lee a certain quality expectation develops, and Death Train does not deliver.There is virtually no chemistry between the characters of Mike, Philpott, and Sabrina. Alexandra Paul could not have been less convincing if she had tried, and she is just not attractive enough to carry the role on looks. You never for one minute believe Brosnan as the super-expert operative (ala Commando). He simply cannot pull this off. And the character does nothing to prove me wrong as he ham-handedly muddles through his assignment. Ted Levine is also miscast as a good ole boy terrorist. Stewart plays Philpott well enough, but Philpott is no Jean Luc Picard! Only Lee emerges unscathed by this turkey. His Russian general is aptly emotionless, cunning, and clinical; ya gotta love 'im! Pass on this one, folks.

Well, it's not quite Fantasy Island, but after watching it I can't help but think that the addition of Ricardo Montalban and Herve Villechaize would have made the movie much more enjoyable.The movie tries hard, but it's let down by a number of things that just make you tut in annoyance.For a start, transporting a nuclear bomb by train? Don't the writers actually do any homework about these things? Let's see, there's a bomb on a train....a nuclear bomb, no less. Hmmm. What should we (the authorities) do about it? I know! Let's allow it to trundle around Europe willy-nilly and not interfere with it, because, after all, it does have a nuclear bomb on board, and we all know that those will go off at the slightest provocation. Bah! In reality a fleet of gunships would blow the living s**t out of the train and they'd worry about the clean-up later. There would be no nuclear explosion. But wait, weren't there hostages? Yeah, right, you think the authorities would give a monkey's ass about a few civilians when they were being threatened with a nuclear inferno? It's this kind of stupidity in writing that really irritates me. Let's write a story and not have the characters/authorities do anything remotely resembling what they'd do in real life. Bah!Another example...when they track down the second bomb and its being trundled down the runway in an airplane, what do they do? Not shoot out the plane's tires (I'm no expert, but I think it might be hard for a prop aircraft to reach take-off speed with all its tires flat, assuming the undercarriage didn't collapse anyway) Oh no! They attempt to board the plane and tackle the bad guys mano-a-mano. Luckily for them, the bad guys, in addition to having a nuclear bomb on board, have also thoughtfully provided sandbags piled up in neat little mounds that make kind of mini-foxhole-like positions. Perfect for an onboard shoot-out! Bah!And, of course, earlier we are treated to one of my pet hates among portrayals of military hardware - the empty rocket pods on the helicopters. Before they even fire one rocket we get a great shot of the helicopter flying towards the camera.....and an equally obvious shot of daylight through the rocket tubes. Would it be so hard to block up the holes? Geez!Of course, the "rockets" turn out to be fireworks that, when fired, shoot off in any direction but towards the target. Oh the hilarity!There's not much to recommend this movie. It's unrealistic and just silly and nobody has any imagination or common sense worth a damn. Just don't get me started on the ludicrous "let's trap them in a tunnel" scene. That just blew chunks.Avoid it if you want to see anything remotely realistic. On the other hand, if you like really lame movies, it's worth a shot.

Now on DVD as Detonator, this was a USA Network Original Movie as Alistair MacLean's Death Train. There is also a sequel Detonator II, or Night Watch. Oddly, even though this was first shown on the USA Network, it is available Widescreen and has a small bit of language.The cast shines here with Ted Lavine (Captain Stottlemeyer on Monk) as the mercenary who high-jacks a train with a nuclear device on it. Ted Lavine is great in these small crazy roles. The Living Legend, Christopher Lee, (Saruman in the Lord of the Rings movies) in one of his non-horror roles, is the Russian General who hired Levine. Any movie with Christopher Lee is worth watching, and this one shows off his ability to speak Russian. Also on board are Patrick Stewart (Captain Picard on Star Trek TNG), Alexandra Paul (Baywatch), and Pierce Brosnan (007) as the Hero.The story is one where Cold Warriors freak out over the lack of a cold war and do horrible thing to start it back up again. Tom Clancy has covered this territory, the Bush Administration has been all about re-starting tension from day one, so nothing new, but it is entertaining.

The Death Train is a part political thriller/Hostage drama that balances the mix very well on both terms. General Konstantin Benin is a Russian Commander who desires the rebirth of Mother Russia, and the only way to do this is to deliver a bomb to Saddam Hussein by rail from Hamburg (Or somewhere in Deutschland) to the heart of Iraq. Benin Hires Alex Tierney, an American mercenary to deliver this Nuclear warhead, but he must do this via a train full of hostages. Trying to stop him is NATO Puppet master Malcolm Philpott and his Lackeys, Rugged hero Mike Graham and Green Sabrina Carver.You might think at first that this film is resolved in patches of messy violent; this is simply not the case. It certainly isn't very violent and there are few tense shootouts that may actually put people off at first. There is also pretty decent directing, too. The scene where Benin turns away from the phone booth reminded me of The Exorcist, the Silence of the lambs and Ronin all in one go. Of course the movie does end in violence and actually ends on a poor high. The final action sequence is a real letdown unfortunately. As the movie goes on, most of the bad guys all end up getting shot dead by Sabrina for some reason. It would have been better to see a fight between Tierney and Graham, but that's that. And besides that would have put this film into B-List Jet Li Territory.The characters are quite well developed really. Mike Graham is your typical action type, played by a rather bland Pierce Brosnan in his pre Bond Years. It's good that he got rid of his sasquatch style from the Lawnmower man. Patrick Stewart is good as Philpott, the head of the NATO operation and Alexandra Paul is feisty and very sexy as Sabrina. Unfortunately, Christopher Lee, a film ledged is wasted in a surprisingly small role. A little more development of his character would have been nice and Ted Levine who chilled us as The Evil; Buffalo Bill, is decently cast as Tierney but could have been a little more chilling. At the end of the day he couldn't scare a kid.As it is, Death Train is a superior cheap movie. It won't win any Oscars but it was nice while it lasted. C+