Transsiberian

Starring: Woody Harrelson, Emily Mortimer, and Sir Ben Kingsley

All movies that take place on a train use the place as a means to increase the pressure, to isolate characters, to trap them, and force interactions among them like a modern desert island. Transsiberian amplifies all these claustrophobic characteristics by adding the language barrier, which two American do-gooders (Harrelson and Mortimer) face while hurtle through the Siberian bleakness. Like the matryoshka dolls that feature so prominently in the plot, isolation is tightly fitted within isolation, a particularly interesting juxtaposition with the frequent wide-angle shots of the vast white wilderness outside the train.

Harrelson, as an Iowa hardware store owner married to the reformed bad girl Mortimer, keeps a mindless patter of chatter that does more than convey the annoyance displayed on Mortimer’s face, it actually is annoying and in retrospect was entirely designed to establish that when the дерьмо ударяет вентилятор, Harrelson can drive a train. His artless back story is matched by her tale of a debauched youth, redeemed by the hokey Harrelson that is told to a young girl Mortimer bonds with on the train. While we don’t see Mortimer drive any trains, she is handy with a 2x4 which she wields deftly to show the hard edge her own story is meant to set-up. While the frame of the six trip by train necessarily confines the range of the narrative, these two stories should be insufficient to drive the train and the movie forward, but they don’t.

In a movie that is ultimately explores trust and dysfunctional relationships under stress, a chance encounter with Kingsley as convincing Russian drug cop is just another chance to apply stress to Harrelson and Mortimer. And apply it he does with a deft touch that is surprisingly gentle throughout a trip the soon turns horrific. Sadly, what is a good thriller has been coated with an unnecessary gloss of combat that looked painful, mainly because it involved running through the snow barefoot. B+

Introduction

This blog will contain reviews of movies and books, in one hundred words or less...hopefully.