Miscast and kinda snore-worthy...
While not a bad film, Transsiberian is a mostly forgettable film except for the complete miscasting of Woody Harrelson. Whoever thought that Woody Harrelson should play a meek, simple, church-going, train geek should never work in Hollywood again--as should the makeup artist responsible for his awful hair-piece found here as well.
The rest of the film contains a premise I thought had potential--two disparate couples find themselves colliding on a train making week long journey from China to Moscow. The claustrophobic conditions lend themselves to the creation of tension and the near-arctic environment leaves a blank slate on which the characters can develop.
Unfortunately the story lets them all down and despite Harrelson, Ben Kingsley and Emily Mortimer (whose performance and character was the near sole reason the film remained watchable) being in featured roles, no single image or scene stands out. This could easily be a TV movie that you flip by or watch momentarily on a lonely weekend but then move on to something else...just about anything else...
This movie really pissed me off.
ReplyDeleteJust.
Tell.
The.
Truth.
It's literally a train wreck of lies piling up on top of other lies. By the halfway mark, I was thoroughly frustrated and hoped all the characters would somehow die, sparing us all their insipid comedy of errors.