The film examines the experience of a group of fugitive convicts (John Voight, Eric Roberts) and a roving girl (Rebecca de Mornay). These people get together on a powerful adventure, finding themselves trapped in a train that spins out of control through Alaska while facing a terrifying fate.
The nihilism and the vicious intensity of Mr. Voight's performance here are entirely different from anything else he has done on screen; it's a shame those qualities emerge in such a vigorous but disjointed film.
Moviehole
May 12, 2005
You'll be on the edge of your seat....until it stops
Future Movies UK
February 07, 2014
A thunderous proto-Speed with exploitation trappings, it also works as an existential art movie with a serious director and a dusted-off Akira Kurosawa script.
Somehow one leaves aside the blatant implausibilities, the coincidences, even Eric Roberts, and takes great pleasure in a breakneck ride to the end of the line.
Wrenchingly intense and brutally powerful, Andrei Konchalovsky's film rates as a most exciting action epic and is fundamentally serious enough to work strongly on numerous levels.
