Overlooked Movies -- Runaway Train

This is another of those movies in which the people in authority over criminals are worse than the criminals themselves, but that's not the heart of the film.  The first part is a prison-break movie with Jon Voight and Eric Roberts escaping from stir and a brutal warden.  After they're out, they hike across a lot of frozen tundra in Alaska and finally get on a train consisting for four engines and hide in the toilet compartment.  This part of the movie's very good in itself, but we're just getting to the real reason for the film. 

The train's engineer has a heart attack.  He gets off the train, setting the brakes but not the throttle.  The brakes eventually burn away, and there's where we get the runaway train.  There are, as you might imagine, problems.  What about other trains on the track?  What about curves in the icy winter with the train going at top speed and no way to slow down and no one to slow it down even if the brakes worked?  What about human conflicts?  

Especially human conflicts because while this is a great action movie, it's really about Voight and Roberts, both of whom are really, really good.  In fact, in watching this you might be wondering, "What happened to Eric Roberts?"  He was a fine actor in this, with an Oscar nomination, and the next thing you know he's making direct-to-VHS movies.  I was teaching in the prison units near Alvin occasionally when this movie came out, and Roberts was perfection.  He would've  fit into the general population of any unit where I taught.

It turns out there's one other person on the train, Rebecca deMornay, and she's also very good.  So is John P. Ryan as the brutal prison warden.  And Edward Bunker has a nice part as Voight's brother.

This is an action movie with some heart (and even a brain), fine acting, plenty of suspense, and a great climactic scene.  Check it out.