Runaway Train

Here, on the other hand, is a picture whose motivation is absolutely clear: it wants to rip your guts out. Watching this picture is like having a blowtorch shoved down your throat; the early prison scenes are among the rawest stuff I've ever seen--very little theatrical pretense here. Nonetheless (more likely, because) it is fascinating--you cannot turn away. The appeal is similar to that of the documentaries showing the big cats killing and eating their prey; disgusting, but riveting. Perhaps that is the key to this picture--it shows people not as people, but reduced to the level of animal. Everything is simple: kill or be killed, eat or be eaten, survive or perish. Eric Roberts is fine in his role, though it is the only role he has ever done (well, except for “The Coca-Cola Kid”) and by now it is assumed that he has perfected it. Jon Voight, on the other hand, is incredible. It is hard to believe that Voight (of “Coming Home,” “Conrack,” “Midnight Cowboy”) is the character you see on screen. He is absolutely one of the most terrifying creations in memory, a demonic personification of evil. Or is it just man at his most primitive?

Maybe that's the point. He screams and torments and brutalizes and bullies, all the while screaming that Roberts can make a seemingly impossible climb on the outside of the train if he just believes that he can. We grow to hate him, for insisting on this impossibility, for not recognizing that men have limits, but then he goes out and makes the climb, by pure strength of will, and you are forced to wonder if he is not right, and to recognize the heroic in him, the purity of his vision. He treads close to being superhuman, and the performance is spellbinding. The ending is as stark and unrelieved as the rest of the picture, but it is only fitting. Wow. Also one of the all-time great lines: "Whatever doesn't kill me makes me stronger.”