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Atomic Train
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by Lions Gate/Trimark Home Ent.
Sales Rank: 12748
Price: $69.98
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With good production values and a load of suspense, <I>Atomic Train</I> delivers the goods--ahead of schedule. A rich bureaucrat with a Porsche, a goatee, and a defective sense of morality places a defective Russian nuclear warhead aboard a defective American train for cheap disposal, but the engine loses its brakes and hurls out of control toward Denver. Will it explode? Will it wipe out half the city? Will the thoughts and prayers of the President--played by Edward Herrmann, in his best Chrysler-salesman mode--do any good? Will Rob Lowe, the major hero of this epic, ever be able to save his career? <p> <I>Atomic Train</I> hauls along every disaster-flick formula you can think of: an estranged couple bonding again during a time of crisis (you begin to miss the hysterical Harvey Fierstein character of <I>Independence Day</I>); urban rioting and mayhem; government officials wearing headsets and breathlessly watching video monitors; trigger-happy military men; high-speed stunts; escapes by helicopter; clean-up crews in white spacesuits; many scenes of families being reunited after subplot cliffhangers, to major-key crescendos on the soundtrack. The only typical element missing is a dog saved from a fire at the last minute. But, you have to admit, what <I>Atomic Train</I> does it does with pizzazz. <p> Everyone's a hero in this movie and almost everyone faces great danger, including Esai Morales, an estranged husband and father; Kristin Davis, the ex-wife with child he's competing with Lowe for; and Zack Ward, the assistant train engineer. It's interesting to see what Ward looks like and what he's doing so many years after playing the yellow-eyed bully in <I>A Christmas Story</I> (hint: a strikingly handsome decent actor). That's one of the many guilty pleasures of this film, with its post-<I>Armageddon</I> tone of overly heroic but ultimately disposable machismo. And explosions. Lots of explosions. <I>--Robert Burns Neveldine</I>
Viewer Reviews
I was surprised to see Rob Lowe in this movie. Of course, Rob is one of the few good things in this movie that is yet another entry into the disaster genre. Unfortunately, there are so many problems with this movie's plot that the producer should have fired the technical advisor or the director that failed to listen to him.
There is this train traveling through the Rocky Mountains with a Russian nuclear missile secreted on board. In addition to the nuclear missile are all kinds of hazardous waste, including metallic sodium, which essentially explodes on contact with water. So, the train is rolling down hill for hundreds of miles into Denver with an air line on the train fails. Wait. That can not be right.
Let us check the facts. Once you get just a little way west of Denver, you are on the other side of the Front Range and the slope goes down again. Then how did the train go rolling for hundreds of miles into Denver? I have no answer for that question. Then there is an even more interesting question, which is why the train brakes failed to work when the air hose broke. The air pressure in the hoses deactivates the brakes, not the other way around. That way train cars will stop automatically when air lines open. Then there is the caboose. Cabooses have not been used in some time, except on rare occasions. Maybe the whole train was hazardous. It certainly seemed to be a couple of centuries behind the times.
If you can avoid the problems with this film, which are numerous, you find that this movie is much ado about nothing. It is a bit more difficult getting a nuclear missile onto a train than you might think. Even Soviet nuclear weapons do not explode easily, and Soviet weapons are notorious for being unreliable; i.e., they often do not work.
I found the whole premise of this movie implausible. Now, had someone tried to dismantle the bomb to get the nuclear material, or had someone set the air to be on constantly, and put a tool box on the accelerator, and arranged for the metallic sodium to crash into a train loaded with Perrier, then there might have been a plot. Instead, I was so caught up in the errors that I really had a hard time gaining any sympathy for any of the characters and what happened to them. I found it difficult to feel badly for the people who died, because at least they did not have to be there for the end of this turkey.
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Atomic Train
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