The people who made Last Passenger are clearly fans of classic thrillers and have studied the form of their art. The direction, casting and acting are excellent. The look of the film and the level of special effects is impressive, considering the budget. And what a great score! I haven't heard a soundtrack for a thriller this good in decades. IMHO, it's the single best thing about this film.
I liked all the characters. I was not bothered, as some other reviewers were, by the absence of any attempt to explain the bad guy's motives. Do we ever understand the motives of these monsters? The writers made the decision to make him simply a malevolent force, and I have no problem with that. It's sufficient that he does what he does. I was with this film and on board for the ride from the start.
Unfortunately, the script has a common earmark of films written and directed by the same person: The plot just isn't good enough. There are several junctures in the story where a director would have told the writer (had they been two separate people), "You've got to do better than this." Instead, I'm guessing he said to himself, "I'll direct this so well that no one will notice."
Well, we did notice. We noticed that the female lead, as appealing as she is, is given nothing to do in the A story except babysit. We noticed that (as one of the other reviewers here put it) the grandmother character's sole function appears to be to die (after some babysitting). The actresses in this film were really given thankless roles (except when they're thanked for babysitting). And yes, we did notice that, in the end, the main character's solution to his problem is simply to jump from the train (moving at about 90 m.p.h). And he lives! Somehow. Because . . he's the protagonist?
Not good enough.
A thriller like this runs on a series of escalating dilemmas and solutions. The dilemmas must be dire (which the filmmakers managed). The solutions have to be a few degrees cleverer than any of us would come up with in the moment. This is especially true in a thriller with a premise we've seen more than a few times. The writers are obligated to come up with at least one solution that is smarter than the solutions presented in all of those other runaway train stories that came before theirs. And they did come up with one such solution--the fire and fire-extinguisher idea of blowing up the deck between train cars so that they can access the coupling. It stretched credulity a little bit, but at least it was clever. And original. Bravo!
Unfortunately, that's followed by the really lame solution of just jumping from the speeding train--which is what was left with the audience as the credits rolled.
It just falls short. Heh. Kind of like a couple of characters at the climax.
I liked all the characters. I was not bothered, as some other reviewers were, by the absence of any attempt to explain the bad guy's motives. Do we ever understand the motives of these monsters? The writers made the decision to make him simply a malevolent force, and I have no problem with that. It's sufficient that he does what he does. I was with this film and on board for the ride from the start.
Unfortunately, the script has a common earmark of films written and directed by the same person: The plot just isn't good enough. There are several junctures in the story where a director would have told the writer (had they been two separate people), "You've got to do better than this." Instead, I'm guessing he said to himself, "I'll direct this so well that no one will notice."
Well, we did notice. We noticed that the female lead, as appealing as she is, is given nothing to do in the A story except babysit. We noticed that (as one of the other reviewers here put it) the grandmother character's sole function appears to be to die (after some babysitting). The actresses in this film were really given thankless roles (except when they're thanked for babysitting). And yes, we did notice that, in the end, the main character's solution to his problem is simply to jump from the train (moving at about 90 m.p.h). And he lives! Somehow. Because . . he's the protagonist?
Not good enough.
A thriller like this runs on a series of escalating dilemmas and solutions. The dilemmas must be dire (which the filmmakers managed). The solutions have to be a few degrees cleverer than any of us would come up with in the moment. This is especially true in a thriller with a premise we've seen more than a few times. The writers are obligated to come up with at least one solution that is smarter than the solutions presented in all of those other runaway train stories that came before theirs. And they did come up with one such solution--the fire and fire-extinguisher idea of blowing up the deck between train cars so that they can access the coupling. It stretched credulity a little bit, but at least it was clever. And original. Bravo!
Unfortunately, that's followed by the really lame solution of just jumping from the speeding train--which is what was left with the audience as the credits rolled.
It just falls short. Heh. Kind of like a couple of characters at the climax.