RUNAWAY TRAIN hurtled into 1985 as a performance showcase for its full throttle lead actors and an action epic from audacious director Andrei Konchalovsky. The screenplay was crafted by Djordje Milicevic, Paul Zindel and Edward Bunker (ex-con-turned-writer, who also has a small role), adapted from one written 18 years earlier by Akira Kurosawa. *

“I’m at war with the world and everybody in it.”

Alaska in the winter. ‘Stonehaven Maximum Security Prison’ is in a joyous uproar because a court order has let bank robber & stir hero ‘Oscar “Manny” Manheim’ (Jon Voight) back into the general population after three years in solitary—his cell welded shut by  ‘Ranken’ (John P. Ryan), the sadistic warden. Manny promptly breaks free, and tagging along with is younger con ‘Buck McGeehey’ (Eric Roberts), who idolizes the ice-cold lifer. The escape is especially daring and audacious due to the weather and terrain. Nature’s dangers are replaced by man-engineered calamity when the two slip aboard a train—heading anywhere, as long as its away from Stonehaven—only to discover their vehicle of delivery may be a deathtrap: the engineer dies from a heart attack and the train roars down the tracks with no-one in control. As frantic efforts from dispatchers led by ‘Eddie McDonald’ (Kenneth McMillan) repeatedly fail, Manny and Buck are further surprised to find there is one more person on with them,  ‘Sara’ (Rebecca De Mornay), a railroad worker who had fallen asleep before the engineer stroked out. She can’t drive the thing, but has some last-ditch ideas on how to maybe slow it down a little. The risk factor in doing that are extreme—but so are the alternatives: life in prison or being crushed to mush when the loco locomotive hits a curve or pressure-sensitive bridge at 80 mph.

At 47, Voight was still boyishly handsome, but that’s banished with convincing makeup (ruined teeth, facial scar, skin darkening and ‘aging’, hair restyling, a Fu ‘stash), but the truly effective make-believe boils up from inside him, in a dynamo of unbridled ferocity; you may as well be stuck in an elevator with a panther. When Manny is on a roll, you get the necessity of prisons. In his shadow, Roberts, 29, does another version of his wired jitterbug from The Pope Of Greenwich Village, toned down some and Southern-fried, not insufferable as in ‘Greenwich‘ but still a horse pill for the ears: how many times can you hear him whine “Manny!” before you want to weld him in a cell? Not showing up until an hour into the ride, a de-glammed De Mornay, 25, is quite good, mixing pluck, panic, decency and a needed element of audience sympathy. Ryan added flair to 41 features and much TV work between 1967 and 1996; his unforgiving Ranken ranks as his signature bad guy essay. McMillan could do bluster and fluster to a fare-thee-well; he enlivens otherwise lame, weakly cast scenes in the dispatch headquarters.The energy and focus from the five is a blessing because most of the rest in the cast are amateurish.

The show is over-the-top from the get-go (so are many enjoyable adventure & action nail-biters) but along with the steam from the lead actors, this rush to judgment is propelled by sheer narrative momentum in the direction, editing, sound, camerawork and stunts. Location shooting in Montana and Alaska is expertly matched with studio work done on sets in California; the craziness has the feel of real, and while a granule of sense tells you not even coked-up stuntmen toting three cojones are nutty enough to do some of what the characters pull off, movie magic fools us into accepting the berserk for thrills sake.

The production cost is given as $9,000,000. Cogerson puts it 99th for ’85; worldwide grosses are pegged at $7,936,000, obviously a financial train wreck. First responder calls from critics, however, were positive; the hell-for-breakfast show carries a notable rep. Academy Award nominations went to Voight as Best Actor (well deserved), Roberts for Supporting Actor (maybe due to being overlooked for his uber-creep in Star 80) and to Film Editing (justified; Henry Richardson was used by the director on five more films).

With Kyle T. Heffner (terrible, who cast this dweeb?), T.K. Carter, Bunker, Stacey Pickren (a silly, nothing part), Danny Trejo (39, debut), Tiny Lister(26, debut), Hank Worden (83, still blinkin’), and Dennis Franz (uncredited bit as a cop). **

* Trains of thought—October, 1962, a real-life locomotive ran wacky for 100 miles outside of Syracuse, New York. Inspired by a March, 1963 article on the event in Life (“The Runaway Train” by Warren R. Young) in the mid-1960’s Akira Kurosawa conceived the idea of a movie around the situation; he and two collaborators wrote a script, with the intent of Kurosawa directing, to be produced by Joseph E. Levine. The project was delayed, then shelved (Kurosawa going on to co-direct Tora! Tora! Tora!, only to be replaced on that epic after a few weeks); years later Francis Ford Coppola suggested Soviet emigre Konchalovsky as director.

Hell on Wheels—trains v tissue, or watch where you put your feet/arms/everything: The General, Denver And Rio Grande, The Bridge On The River Kwai, Lawrence Of Arabia, How The West Was Won, The Train, Von Ryan’s Express, The Wild Bunch, Emperor Of The North, Breakheart Pass, The Great Train Robbery, Unstoppable…

** Six Degrees of Incarceration & Who You Know (or something) —Danny Trejo and co-writer Bunker had met 18 years earlier—as inmates in San Quentin.  Stacey Pickren, 30, was cast merely because she was Voight’s girlfriend for seven years: she was also given bit parts in Coming Home and Lookin’ To Get Out.  Er, the name Manny is spoken/bleated/yelled eighty-one times.