Review of TransSiberian (2008) by Dawdlingpoet — 22 Nov 2021

I quite enjoyed this movie as it had a few interesting plot twists and it wasn't too predictable. I particularly liked Jessie as a character, I thought she was played quite well by Emily Mortimer, playing a curious tourist that takes a photo diary of everywhere she visits with her SLR camera.

The movie was slightly slow to start but once it really 'gets going' pace wise (around about 45-50 minutes into the movie, I'd say), it is quite chilling (pardon the pun given the part of the world its set in!). Like I say there definitely are some interesting plot twists, indeed as the story developed I felt that I could predict the outcome only to be proven wrong, which was quite interesting. I did, however, feel that the main let down of this movie was the lack of any real character development - we learn that certain characters have some clearly quite complicated backgrounds but we don't really learn much about them, which is a shame. Of course, people could also say that there are some fairly typical stereotypes present in the movie, yes its an American movie set in Russia so the Russians aren't all portrayed as good guys and so on but other than that, its not too bad. There are some tense action scenes in the movie, although there aren't really any special effects as such but its still exciting and intriguing enough to not be boring and indeed it felt like I was watching a novel, in that I thought it was quite a well thought out script, with the different plot twists and everything, it doesn't entirely rely on visual effects to keep you watching, which is good. I found it interesting to watch in terms of me being female and seeing how Jessie reacted in whats really the key scene in the movie, with Carlos' advances becoming more aggressive and her being in a remote area with no-one else to help, it made me question what I would do in the same situation. I guess its like I think they say in the movie, you shouldn't trust people you meet while travelling in a foreign country, although that should be common sense, it definitely applies in this movie. I should probably warn you that there are one or two torture scenes as well as some strong language used in the movie, so its perhaps not one for the very squeamish, though it did add to the suspense of the movie. I was afraid that the ultimate outcome of the movie may let me down but actually I thought that the final scene added to the intrigue and it leaves you questioning things, its another, final plot twist you could say, which was quite good I think.

Yes I would recommend this movie as its quite chilling/thrilling once the story really gets going and the characters are interesting. The story has a few twists which adds to the intrigue and all in all, I enjoyed watching it, so I would recommend it. It isn't a perfect movie, if there is such a thing, in that I felt that more background information on the characters would have helped it, we only gain enough of a glimpse to realise that certain characters come from a troubled past but little is learnt about that and also if your critical you could be irked by one or two typical American stereotypes but otherwise, its a good movie.