Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

I'm a little embarrassed to admit it, but I got a little confused during the plot of Union Pacific. It's about the rise of the railroad West to California, and the different characters either try to stop it or try to keep it going. Some people have ulterior motives, and through the twists and turns, I got a bit lost. Plus, I kept getting the two leading men, Joel McCrea and Robert Preston, confused. Barbara Stanwyck plays a plucky Irish lass in this movie, who steals the hearts of both Joel and Robert, and it's a pretty intense love triangle that will keep you guessing until the very end. There's love, action, secret plots, murder, and a historical background to carry you through this forgotten old movie. And, if afterwards, you forget about it, well, no one will really blame you.

You always know what you're going to get with Demille movies: brute action, razzle dazzle, and more background actors than can plausibly fit on a billion movie screens. I love McCrea and Stanwyck as a couple here and elsewhere: the quips fly at you two at a time, and there's no shortage of begrudging chemistry. The effects and action sequences in this flick are impressive -- just about the only time you're taken out of a well-hewn west is when the Union Pacific plunges off an icy clime. It looks like a Lionel. Other than that, this movie isn't child's play, and though it doesn't paint a wholly accurate picture of the frontier, it at least tries to in places...

Still another great 1939 film is "Union Pacific." The film, which is rich in history, is about the coming of the railroad linking the east and west and those who would do anything to destroy the construction of this mighty link.Barbara Stanwyck puts on an authentic Irish accent as lassie Mollie Monahan, and she is Mollie to a tee. Her love interests include Joel McRea as the overseer to make sure that the railroad is constructed, and his friend, Robert Preston, who unfortunately takes to the wrong side on this one, when he joins forces with always bad Brian Donlevy, a stooge for a financier who will stop at nothing to prevent the completion of this project.The film has everything-history, lust, a great train wreck, Indian uprisings and greed as well as desire.

It doesn't suffer from any of his usual flaws. The pacing is perfect, the acting is not at all stilted, and the technical aspects don't dominate the story or the characters. The story centers around the building of the titular railroad. A banker hires a motley group of gamblers and whoremongers (led by Brian Donlevy) to slow down production and then invests in the Central Pacific. Joel McCrea plays a railroad cop, basically, who sees that Donlevy is trouble. He can't outright kick him out, because his army buddy and best friend (Robert Preston) is Donlevy's partner. To further complicate the relationship between McCrea and Preston, there is a girl caught between them (Barbara Stanwyck). It's a great story supported by fine performances all around. While the film runs for 2 hours and 19 minutes, it never seemed boring at all. There are several exciting setpieces, most notably an Indian attack. There are also a couple of great suspense sequences. I loved the scene where McCrea corners Preston and Stanwyck after the payroll has been stolen. It goes on for a long time but the suspense never breaks. Generally I don't think DeMille has skill enough to pull something like that off. My only real problem is that sometimes the good guys are as bad as the villains. McCrea has two sidekicks, played by Akim Tamiroff and Lynne Overman, who can't help but be referred to as henchmen. I mean, even the characters' names are sinister, Fiesta and Leach. Donlevy has a couple of henchmen as well (Anthony Quinn in an early role and Robert Barrat), and they aren't any scarier.