John Chard
Narrow Margins and Wide Loads.
Director and writer Peter Hyams took the bold decision to reimage one of the best film noir crime pictures of the 1950s, and all things considered its not half bad. Without getting close to the greatness of Richard Fleischers 1952 claustrophobic suspenser that is.
Having Gene Hackman and Anne Archer heading up your two principal characters is a good foundation. As the district attorney employee and witness to a mob killing respectively, both actors come up trumps for their director as they are thrust into a game of cat and mouse aboard a speeding train. As the Canadian wilderness outside the trains windows soothes the eyes, the cramped interiors make for good suspense as Hackman plays the calm to Archers...