Review of Three and Out (2008) by Katie L — 01 Aug 2010

Gives a whole new meaning to "let's hit the tracks".

Some three years ago we were stood in a queue at a tickets office of Liverpool St Station. We were next in line. There was a girl at the window directly in front of us; having missed her train she was arguing with a Network Rail employee: "No, you don't understand ... [something, something] ... connection ... [something] .... delayed. Please check with ... [something, something]. Some FUCKING IDIOT jumped under MY FUCKING TRAIN! The TRAIN was DELAYED! I MISSED THE CONNECTION!" Oh dear, not again, eh?

So that was the subject of a good half hour's conversation on the way to Cambridge ? we don't care how shite you think your life is, yadda yadda, but throwing yourself in front of a train just isn't cricket. First of all, you're inconveniencing and potentially traumatizing the train's passengers, and then of course there is the train diver who surely has not signed a no objection notice to being forced to kill you.

Except that the train driver in Three and Out indeed has no objections. Having accidentally killed two people who, within a fortnight -- in one way or another -- found themselves under his train, London Tube driver Paul (Mackenzie Crook) learns of a little-spoken-of Tube drivers' union rule: if you hit three people in a month, the railway has to pay you a handsome sum as a compensation, and you get to go on early retirement with a full pension. Now all that Paul needs to do is find somebody willing to jump in front of his train by the end of the week to make it three.

Three and Out is funny, well-acted, and reasonably paced. Granted, there are a couple of slow bits, and the writing could be improved upon, still, I found it well worth £2.29 for a DVD.