Review of TransSiberian (2008) by James S — 16 Jan 2012

The shadow of Strangers on a Train combined with the Brad Pit starring Kalifornia hang over this rather incoherent and annoyingly frustrating thriller. Transsiberian is very dull for very long periods before injecting a dose of excitement with one of its plot twists. only to fall back into the slow, lumber of a train travelling from China to Russia.

Which is the predominant setting here. Woody Harrelson and wife, Emily Mortimer, are Christian do-gooders en route to Moscow from China. They end up sharing a cabin with Kate Mara and Eduardo Noriega, a pair who have got "dodgy" written all over them. Before long it seems like Noriega has done away with Harrelson and set his sites firmly on getting into Mortimer's pants amongst other shenanigans.

The plot sound not dissimilar to the many other American in trouble abroad thrillers/horrors that are churned out year after year, world without end. The film does go in a different way to how most of the movies go which is refreshing but not necessarily very interesting.

Mortimer is the only one of the cast worth noting in the movie. She plays her character with some depth and turns in the decent standard of performance we've come to expect from her. Kate Mara is criminally under-used and looks rather vacant through out. The males don't fare quite so well. Noriega is unlikeable and comes across as a slightly slimey version of Fernando Alonso while Harrelson is rather bland and his relationship with Mortimer totally unconvincing. Ben Kingsley also commands little presence as a narcotics investigator but does rather well at rehearsing his James Bond villain voice.

But Transsiberian's biggest flaw is it's lack of real action. The twists are dangled out in front of the audience to grasp at only to be battered down by the flat script and performances. The pacing of the movie is all over the place making this feel like more of an ordeal to watch than anything else. The finale attempts to take a turn into the more traditional trappings of tourists in hell thrillers, while the very final scene feels like a dvd extra, alternate ending that the director felt he maybe needed to tag on in order to send everyone home happy.

The squandered twists and Emily Mortimer aside, Transsiberian feels much like the eight day train ride in centres upon. Long, cramped and arduous.