Runaway Train is a gripping on-screen voyage. It’s a brisk, harrowing story full of tension, stakes, and impending doom.
But its pathway off the screen, from pre-production to film, is a twenty-year journey.
The film originated as a script by the legendary filmmaker Akira Kurosawa (Seven Samurai, Rashomon).
In the early 1960s, Kurosawa read an article in Life Magazine about a runaway train, and it sparked his filmmaking imagination into action.
By 1966, Kurosawa was ready to make Runaway Train for Embassy Pictures. His script (written along with Hideo Oguni and Ryuzo Kikushima) was about two escaped convicts accidentally getting stuck on a runaway train.
But the film was canceled at the last minute.
Still, the script remained property of the Nippon Herald Company. And in 1982, they asked Francis Ford Coppola to recommend a director. Coppola and producer Tom Luddy recommended Andrei Konchalovsky, who secured funding for the project through Cannon Films.
And, yes, that’s a Kurosawa movie seed getting soil and sunlight from the crew that brought you tasty exploitation fare like Invasion USA, American Ninja, or Stallone’s Cobra. It’s a bizarre mix, but I think the key word here from Cannon is financing, not influence.
Runaway Train was released in November 1985 and won over critics, receiving praise from well-known figures such as Janet Maslin of The New York Times and Roger Ebert, who awarded it four out of four stars.
And the love has stood the test of time. For example, you can see the film’s current 83% critic score and 76% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. It also ranks on some lists of the most underrated movies of the 1980s or lists of the best films The Cannon Group ever made.
But audiences didn’t care. The film hit $7.7 million against a $9 million budget and probably more with whatever Cannon spent on marketing.
So who is right about Runaway Train, the past and current critics, or the audiences who skipped it at the theater? Let’s find out.
Is Runaway Train a good movie?
The Plot of Runaway Train:
Bankrobber Oscar “Manny” Manheim (Jon Voight) is a hero to his fellow convicts of Stonehaven Maximum Security Prison in Alaska. Still, he’s the scum of the earth to the prison’s warden, known only as Ranken (John P. Ryan).
After two previous escapes, Ranken throws Manny in solitary confinement. But after three years in the hole, a court orders Ranken to release Manny.
Now back amongst the inmates, the calculating Manny soon meets the perfect accomplice for his next escape – plucky prison boxer Buck McGeehy (Eric Roberts).
After Manny and Buck slip out of the prison, they hop aboard a cargo train.
But when the engineer has a heart attack, they find themselves alone on the train.
As the out-of-control locomotive picks up speed, can Manny and Buck find a way to survive?
And as Ranken finds out where Manny has run, can he get his wish and kill Manny before the train does his dirty work for him?
The rest of the main cast includes:
- Rebecca De Mornay as Sara
- Kyle T. Heffner as Frank Barstow
- T. K. Carter as Dave Prince
- Kenneth McMillan as Eddie MacDonald
- Stacey Pickren as Ruby
- Walter Wyatt as Conlan
- Edward Bunker as Jonah
- Reid Cruickshanks as Al Turner
- Dan Wray as Fat Con
- Michael Lee Gogin as Short Con
- Carmen Filpi as Signal Maintainer
- John Bloom as Tall Con
- Norton E. “Hank” Worden as Old Con
- Daniel Trejo as Boxer
- Tiny Lister as Jackson, the security guard
- Dennis Franz (uncredited) as Cop
What’s Working Well Here:
Characters and Performances, +6 Points
Both Jon Voight and Eric Roberts received Academy Award and Golden Globe Award Nominations for their performances, with Voight winning his Golden Globe.
And it’s easy to see the logic behind the praise.
With his scarred eye and tooth fillings, Voight’s Manny somewhat reminds you of Tuco from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly – but only so. This scoundrel is more about tragedy than Tuco’s mischief.
Voight finds the eyes and heavy stare of someone you don’t want to cross because he has nothing to lose. Friend or foe, he will drop you cold and dead at any minute, if he has to.
Yet there’s also a mentor-like warmth to Manny, one that’s evident when he lectures Buck about getting a real job instead of going back to bank robbery.
If Snake Plisken of Escape from New York was the 1980s anti-hero who ignored responsibility because he had become jaded, this is the anti-hero who just never bothered with the right path but knows better.
Manny tells Buck, in a painful monologue, to hang onto just a regular cleaning job and don’t take offense when they ask you to do it better. Don’t walk away seeking that other thing because there’s an honor in just taking the shit they’re giving you and getting through.
You wouldn’t think there’s anything to pity Manny over, but right there in the speech when he admits he couldn’t and wouldn’t do the job either, you get it. Manny chooses his life, but it’s like a dark destiny.
It was funny watching Eric Roberts as the bumpkin-like Buck because I’ve only recalled him in this movie and The Pope of Greenwich Village.
Perhaps Roberts has a gift for playing guys who think they’re smarter than they are.
In Pope, he’s a low-life criminal who keeps aiming for the high life, much to his detriment.
In this movie, Roberts’s Bucky can win a fight in the ring but not much else. He’s all application and little brains.
But we find Buck to be human and darkly endearing. He’s a powerful boxer but like a misguided puppy who bites hard. He wants to be Manny’s partner so badly. Perhaps companionship was all Buck needed to go straight and ditch crime.
Like Old Adventure Times, +2 Points
There’s a patient, old-school flow to this film.
The script unfolds in milestones that scriptwriting books would preach – for example, an inciting incident that kicks Act One into Act Two (Manny and Buck boarding the train), plenty of exposition in Act One, and a new wrinkle in the story right around that hour mark.
But the story is better than the screenwriter’s checklist many modern movies feel like, allowing action or drama to unfold naturally, without a scene for the sake of a scene.
And the actors have leeway to fill in the gaps. We don’t overexplain our characters with unnecessary exposition. The film storytells on its feet, and it’s all the better for it.
And there’s plenty of tension.
Once the story is up to speed and has momentum, much like a train, it comes up with obstacle after obstacle.
There’s the struggle of Manny and Buck on the train, the random workers we meet along the way who have to get out of the train’s path or switch its tracks in time to avoid disaster, and our scenes at the command center where the controllers try to divert the locomotive and prevent catastrophe.
Manny vs Ranken, +4 Points
While the central conflict is Manny and Buck trying not to die on the train, the secondary conflict between Manny and the warden, Ranken, elevates the movie.
Ranken is hell-bent on stopping Manny; Manny is hell-bent on escaping.
But the warden isn’t trying to rehabilitate anyone. He cruises with an entourage of club-wielding riot police jailers. And when there is an actual riot, he walks through fire like he don’t give a shit.
And for Manny, his life has truly lost meaning. He taunts Ranken that he could do months of time standing on his head if Ranken tried to force him back into solitary. It’s a rebellion that lacks purpose.
It’s a senseless, private war that both men want to win, but by fighting the war, they’re both losing.
Let’s End This, +2 Points
**Heavy Spoiler Alerts Here**
A warning that reading on here will wreck the end of the movie for you; so skip ahead if you want.
You could see this speeding, out-of-control train as some kind of metaphor, no doubt. Director Konchalovski has described it as perhaps society breaking down, which I think is apt. And he’s said that the movie’s design is still very much Kurosawa’s in its existential point of view.
And that’s what I love about this movie’s finale.
When it’s time for Ranken and Manny to settle the boiling rage between them, the film does it in the least American 1980s action movie way possible.
Ranken, because he has gone insane in his anger and because why the hell not for the film’s spectacle, lands on the train via a helicopter. Sure. One of Ranken’s goons just bought it when he couldn’t stick the landing and fell under the train, but Ranken, as Manny taunts him from below, is undeterred.
And after their scuffle, it’s Manny who has gotten the upper hand on Ranken, handcuffing him to the train.
But here’s the deviation.
The 1980s American action film formula would be Manny uttering a one-liner to Ranken and improvising a heroic escape, leaving Ranken to his death. Or Manny would push the guy under the rails with a quip, triumphing after a struggle, and hitting that button to stop the train.
But not this film. Instead, Manny uncouples the train, saving Buck and Sara but dooming himself and Ranken.
As Manny has said, “Win or lose, what’s the difference?” And it’s this ride, not into the sunset but standing atop a speeding train, his mustache getting crisp and smothered in falling snow, where we leave Manny and end the film.
It’s the darkly poetic, brilliant end you have to love.
What’s Not Working So Well:
Not Always Effective Effects, -2 Points
If you wanted to pick on this movie, you could go after a few effects and techniques that didn’t age quite so well.
There’s what I think is a rear projection effect that fails to convince when characters are moving around the train while it is moving at high speeds. They’re moving, but so is the obvious background behind them.
And you don’t have to squint to spot what looks like an iffy matte painting, like something out of a holiday store, full of Alaska snow. For some reason, the editing lingered on this shot for several seconds, despite it being a jarring image.
But, hey, this was 1985. You’ll still get some cool train collisions and helicopter stunts, featuring old-school crashing of metal against metal.
Go Watch Runaway Train
Total Score: 12 Points
Runaway Train rides standout performances and healthy dramatic tension to a poetic, gripping conclusion that might even make you think. And that payoff is the ultimate sign that, hey, you’ve been invested in this film’s drama.
A few of its filmmaking techniques are dated, but you won’t care.
Critics have praised this movie since the mid-1980s, and in our current 2020s environment riddled with content, it’s still worth setting aside some time for.
The Legacy of Runaway Train:
So what is the legacy of Runaway Train?
Well, I guess you could call the movie a cult classic. It’s underappreciated by audiences in its day but remains a critical pick. I’m not the gatekeeper for what does or doesn’t earn that cult designation, though, and I don’t know or care to debate it.
I couldn’t say what led to its underperforming ticket sales. But its lackluster movie poster, at least for me, wasn’t doing it any favors. I guess they were going with a kinetic look, with that train coming at you from the tracks. But it looks like a disaster movie, which I think is a disconnect.
And maybe the marketing team didn’t know what to do with it. That trailer is all about the action thrills, and it delivers on that, but the movie’s tone is deeper.
Whatever the case, as a piece of legacy now, the film sets itself apart from other 1980s American thrillers. The blend of serious, tragic themes and action is rare.
The movie features two minor roles for infamous actors that fans will spot.
First up, you’ll notice it’s Danny Trejo, also known as Machete, in the ring with Eric Roberts’s Buck for the boxing scene. It’s said Trejo was cast when he came to the set as a drug abuse counselor for somebody working with the crew who was disturbed by the rampant cocaine abuse on set. That seems to open up a whole new angle to this movie, but I don’t think I’m going to go there.
A consultant on the film, Edward Bunker, remembered Trejo from their time together in San Quentin State Prison. So he helped Trejo get hired for the role and work as a boxing trainer for Roberts.
You may also recognize Tommy Lister, Jr., as the guard Jackson. This is Lister’s first acting role. If you don’t know him by name, you probably know him by sight. He’s a literal big guy in a lot of films. Lister was legendary neighborhood bully Deebo in Friday and President Lindberg in The Fifth Element, among many other roles.
It’s said that directors like Martin Scorsese have admired the work of director Andrei Konchalovsky. The guy has a mile-long career, yet this was his first movie I’ve ever watched.
It’s funny he made this so-different 1980s film, as the only movie he’s made that I truly recognize is that formulaic Stallone and Kurt Russell buddy-cop film Tango & Cash. That’s just about the farthest tonal difference I can think of to this movie, but I guess you go where the cash is, literally.
Konchalovsky has made movies in both the United States and Russia in a 60-year career, including adaptations of authors like Anton Chekhov and historical epics.
Jon Voight is an actor you probably know. He’s got an Academy Award win with multiple nominations, a British Academy Film Award, and four Golden Globe Awards. He has also received nominations for four Primetime Emmy Awards. He’s even got a National Medal of Arts.
And Voight comes with a lot of baggage for me. I disagree with his politics, which I find extra-odd because he was associated with 1960s counter-culture films. But I’m not here to open that up right now.
You might know him for his Oscar-nominated role in Midnight Cowboy, a film I don’t remember too well, but I recall thinking that any cinephile should see it. He has also appeared in movies such as Deliverance, Heat, and the first Mission: Impossible. He’s also done TV, like the Showtime show Ray Donovan.
If you don’t know his career, I think of Eric Roberts a bit like you would Nicholas Cage. Roberts hasn’t been in as many high-profile films as Cage, but he has a similar reputation for being a very talented guy who, strangely, is willing to do things as long as you pay him. I think he’s even said just about that before.
The guy is good here, in The Pope of Greenwich Village, and fantastically creepy in Star 80, that Bob Fosse movie. But later in his career he’s had notable roles too, like Sal Maroni in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight.
But Roberts has appeared in many direct-to-video releases, for whatever decision that is about.
Roberts has over 700 credits. It boggles my mind how someone can do that in a lifetime. I don’t think I could field 700 calls about TV and films if I were an actor.
If you don’t know, yes, he is Julia Roberts’s brother.
And he has the distinction of getting mocked and eaten in a South Park season two episode called “Cartman’s Mom is Still a Dirty Slut.” Hopefully it’s something Roberts laughed about.
Apologies to any actors I didn’t highlight.
It’s said that Runaway Train inspired the 1994 runaway bus movie Speed, though in a backward way.
Graham Yost, a screenwriter, learned about Runaway Train from his dad, Elwy Yost, a Canadian TV host. For some reason, like dads seem to do, Elwy thought the train had a bomb on board.
So Graham Yost thought his story would be better if there were a bomb on board a bus that would go off if it went too slow.
But strangely, there is a Japanese film called The Bullet Train, released in 1975, in which a bomb will explode if a train drops below 80 kilometers per hour.
So I don’t know if Father Yost was confusing 1985’s American film Runaway Train with 1975’s Japanese movie The Bullet Train. But either way, oddly, Graham Yost was inspired by a Japanese-written movie about trains for Speed.
Funny enough, Yost originally wrote that Speed’s plot device was the bus dropping below 20 miles per hour to set off the bomb, but a friend suggested raising it to 50 miles per hour. Now that’s a good change and a lovely friend because that’s a lot more exciting. I think slow-motion, 20-mile-an-hour Speed would have to change its title to Residential Zone Speed, or something.
Incidentally, The Bullet Train 1975 has a sequel, Bullet Train Explosion, a Japanese film that just came out on Netflix in April of 2025. So the world is still doing bomb-is-on-a-vehicle movies.
Lastly, the 1993 Soul Asylum song, Runaway Train, with its infamous music video about missing people – yeah, no relation to this movie.
Well, that’s all I got. Thanks for reading.
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Disclaimer:
This review’s factual information was gathered through online sources, like Wikipedia, IMDB, or interviews. Misrepresentations and errors are possible but unintentional.
Making art is hard. This is a fan’s blog. Any criticisms are meant to be constructive.
