Runaway Train (1985)

Two escaped convicts and a female railway worker find themselves trapped on a train with no brakes and nobody driving.

Director:

Andrey Konchalovskiy

Writers:

Djordje Milicevic (screenplay), Paul Zindel (screenplay),

Stars:

Jon Voight, Eric Roberts, Rebecca De Mornay

Nominated for 3 Oscars. Another 2 wins & 5 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Jon Voight	...	Oscar 'Manny' Manheim
Eric Roberts	...	Buck McGeehy
Rebecca De Mornay	...	Sara
Kyle T. Heffner	...	Frank Barstow
John P. Ryan	...	Warden Ranken
T.K. Carter	...	Dave Prince
Kenneth McMillan	...	Eddie MacDonald
Stacey Pickren	...	Ruby
Walter Wyatt	...	Conlan
Edward Bunker	...	Jonah
Reid Cruickshanks	...	Al Turner (as Reid Cruikshanks)
Dan Wray	...	Fat Con
Michael Lee Gogin	...	Short Con
John Bloom	...	Tall Con
Hank Worden	...	Old Con (as Norton E. 'Hank' Warden)

Storyline

A hardened convict and a younger prisoner escape from a brutal prison in the middle of winter only to find themselves on an out-of-control train with a female railway worker while being pursued by the vengeful head of security.

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Plot Keywords:

train | prison | prisoner | escape | heart attack | 

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Taglines:

Once it starts, nothing can stop it!

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Genres:

Action | Adventure | Drama | Thriller

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Certificate:

R

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

6 December 1985 (USA)

Also Known As:

Escape en tren

Filming Locations:

Montana, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$9,000,000 (estimated)

Gross:

$7,936,012 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Golan-Globus Productions, Northbrook Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

111 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Color:

Color (Rankcolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Kurosawa's original screenplay was inspired by an actual incident in the Northeast, when a locomotive left sitting unattended allegedly throttled up and took off down the main line.

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Goofs

The day is overcast and/or snowy until Rankin arrives in a helicopter to try and put a man on the train. The sky suddenly turns clear blue for the helicopter scenes, then goes back to being overcast and snowy.

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Quotes

Manny: [after listening to Buck's dream] That's bullshit. You're not gonna do nothin' like that. I'll tell you what you gonna do. You gonna get a job. That's what you gonna do. You're gonna get a little job. Some job a convict can get, like scraping off trays in a cafeteria. Or cleaning out toilets. And you're gonna hold onto that job like gold. Because it is gold. Let me tell you, Jack, that is gold. You listenin' to me? And when that man walks in at the end of the day. And he comes to see how you ...
[...]

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Connections

Featured in The 58th Annual Academy Awards (1986)

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Soundtracks

"Gloria in D Major"
by Antonio Vivaldi (as Vivaldi)
Performed by The USSR Academic Russian Chorus and the Moscow Conservatoire Students Orchestra

User Reviews

A modest masterpiece

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. Their struggle to stop the train and battle their own inner demons is the movie.

Konchalovsky creates a cold, alien, ethereal world inside the train that, in the oddest way, provides a haven for self-examination for the two leads. Rebecca de Mournay is layered into the mix, as is the indefatigable John P. 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).