Transsiberian
Crit
Inevitably, films--particularly action suspensers--set largely on trains must confront the straight-as-rails metaphor: does it present surprising twists, or are you in the observation car, seeing everything coming from miles away? (Yeah, I know: few observation cars are elevated and forward-facing, but you get the idea.)
Well, Connecticut filmmaker (I love saying that) Brad Anderson, in only his fourth feature in the decade since the enchanting Next Stop Wonderland (and the first one anybody will see: combined U.S. box office, per IMDb, for Happy Accidents [2001], Session 9 [2001], and The Machinist [2004]: $2,145,192), has in the first two acts engineered (sorry) a few switches from the main line worthy of Hitchcock: you think you know what has happened to Roy (Woody Harrelson), but you don't; you think you know what's coming when Jessie (Emily Mortimer) and Carlos (Eduardo Noriega) traipse off into the country together, but you're in for at least one surprise, probably two.
Unfortunately, come act III, the only stunner remaining is how squirmy the torture scene is going to be. Yeesh! Even down the stretch, Mortimer is excellent as the former bad girl reminded what it was she didn't like about the dangerous life, and as a corrupt Russian narc, the suddenly omnipresent Ben Kingsley is, well, Ben Kingsley. Harrelson, on the other hand, is a lot more persuasive as a pornographer or a psychotic than as an Iowa hardware store owner.
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