NIGHT TRAIN

US, 2009, 93 minutes, Colour.
Danny Glover, Leelee Sobieski, Steve Zahn, Matthias Schweighofer, Richard O’ Brien, Constantine Gregory, Geoff Bell.
Directed by Brian King.

Night Train is something like a Twilight Zone or Amazing Stories episode. It combines realism with the touch of the mysterious mystical.

The film is set on Christmas Eve, giving a different tone to the Christmas spirit. The locations used for Bulgaria, although most of the action takes place inside a train, with some scenes outside very bleak and with snow.

The film has a very strong cast. Danny Glover is the guard on the train, nearing retirement, with a wife who has a terminal illness. Leelee Sobieski is a passenger, seriously reading books on surgery and anatomy, yet transforming into somebody quite devious and violent. Steve Zahn simply does a variation on his genial loser type. Matthias Schweighofer (Baron Von Richthofen in The Red Baron) is an apprentice guard. There is a guest performance by Richard O’ Brien, in drag (not difficult to discern immediately) as Mrs Froy, a mysterious passenger on the train – and the name coming from Dame May Whitty’s character who disappeared in The Lady Vanishes.

Had the film had not such a strong cast, it might not have made such an impact. However, as with stories like Shallow Grave, A Simple Plan, the seemingly simple plan leads to all kinds of unanticipated complications and disaster and death.

1. The popularity of this kind of Twilight Zone style story? The combination of realism with the mystical, with the mysterious?

2. The Christmas Eve setting? The locations in Bulgaria? The train, its interiors? The exteriors – the model train in the countryside? Snow, night and winter? The musical score?

3. The title and expectations? Other films with Night Train in the title? Thrillers?

4. The basic situation, somewhere in North America, people travelling on the night train north? The stops? The mysterious man hurrying through the snow, almost missing the train, the guard allowing him on? His mysterious box?

5. The situation with the man, unknown? To meet someone? His nervousness, the drink, the pills, his death? The decision of Peter and Chloe with the guard? The body, transferring it to the other carriage as if drunk? The decision to dismember the body, Chloe and the viciousness of the dismemberment? In the trunk, Peter and Miles tossing the trunk off the back of the train, with great difficulty? The irony of its bouncing on the ice? Being discovered?

6. The significance of the mysterious box? People looking inside it, mesmerised? The later revelation that they all saw different things? Miles hiding the box and locking it away? Its being retrieved? The other passengers wanting the box? Frank and his taking the box, it all leading to his death? The mysterious new passenger saying that all would be dead by dawn? The nature of the box, unable to be opened? People seeing what they wanted to see?

7. Miles, his character, an upright man, faced with the situation? His knowing everything by clockwork? Sitting in his room, with the box? His change of heart? His being drawn in further, despite his conscience? The dismemberment and his having to get rid of the trunk? Climbing on the roof, confronting Chloe with the keys, letting Peter back in? With the other passengers? The stops? Locking Peter and Chloe in the compartment? His failure to explain things well, the man suspicious, Miles not telling the truth, Mrs Froy and her revealing the presence of the man? The further difficulties, the further deaths? His reluctance? The final arrival, the box falling out of the train, his retrieving it? The child and the box? Miles’ death? His previous concern about his wife and the need for the money?

8. Chloe, going to meet her parents, her studies? Calm, plan? Her dismembering the body, her surgical knowledge? Her becoming ever more violent, covering up with the police, hiding Peter in the compartment, sealing him in, his death? Her previous plan to lock him out in the snow? The confrontation with the various passengers, the shootings? The police? Her seemingly being killed, unable to be killed? Her wanting the box, searching for it? Her death?

9. Peter, the salesman, his talk, dreaming of going to the Marquesas? Offering the drink to the new passenger, his death? The cover-up? Transporting the body? His not being a leader, trying to take over? No match for Chloe? With the other passengers? Locked in? His not seeing the policemen? In the compartment, his being sealed in, his death?

10. The mysterious man who wanted the stranger on the train, the mixed messages, his detecting the lies? His death? Chloe and her responsibility?

11. The police, getting on the train after pursuing it, the story about the trunk and its opening? The interrogations? The final confrontation and Chloe with the gun?

12. The Asian men, their playing the game, Peter and his diversion as they moved the body through on the wheelchair? Miles and his talking to them? The truth about their searching for the box, the deaths?

13. Mrs Froy, in disguise, with the poodle? Her wanting the box?

14. The engineer, the mystery of the train, not able to stop, his death?

15. The box, everybody seeing what they wanted? The simple plan, the dire consequences? Death?

16. The finale, the child with the box – an air of mystery?