Shouting Grounds

I’m on the fence when it comes to John Voight. I don’t know whether to love him or hate him. In some movies he’s good, and in some movies, he’s that cliche “presidential type” character that performs so poorly on screen (see President Franklin D. Roosevelt in Pearl Harbor, Michael Bay’s horse-manure-ass movie about the perils of bad acting and directing). Anyway, this review is not about Michael Gay, and as I “get on with it, man”, I’ll eventually get to the movie that lists atop this post that seems to go nowhere…Runaway Train.

OK, Runaway Train is one of those movies that you see on TV very late at night a couple of years previous and think nothing of it…that is until you get this little notion in the back of your brain five years later that says, “hey, that movie that you have no idea what it’s called seemed pretty cool.” Thanks to Yahoo Answers, the title of the forgotten memory was revealed, and to tell the truth, I had no idea that John Voight was even in it.

Back then, I only saw the ending, and that cinched the deal for me. It involves a speeding train, blood, broken glass, massive and crazed shouting, calm and collected cool, helicopters, rope ladders, snow, scenery that makes your bones cold just watching it, and did I mention a speeding locomotive? Oh yes! Now do you know why I initially like the movie? But above all else, I must comment on John Voight’s performance. He kicked ass in this film! I thought he did well in Deliverance, but he still seemed pansy-ish.

John Voight plays this character nicknamed Manny, who has been locked up in a Hell-on-Earth maximum security prison for a number of years. The warden, aka Ranken, wants to kick his ass somethin’ fierce, but the tough-yet-cool Manny fights back. One of my favorite scene takes place in the prison during an “intramural” boxing match. All goes well until Manny gets stabbed in the hand by a fellow inmate, who was forced to fight Manny by the evil warden, who in turn is watching the whole event from the safety of a catwalk. A fight of course develops, but Manny eventually redirects his anger towards the Warden. The whole place is quiet as Manny yells at the top of his lungs at Ranken, even walking past bullets shot as his feet. Ranken remains silent, even after Manny whips a wooden stool up at the catwalk! Fuckin awesome scene, and John Voight excelled here. Just balls to walls tough!

Actually, throughout the movie, John does a good job, with good dialogue and unrestrained use of anger. His “love” for the Warden brings out the beast in his character, and I think he nailed it. So much fucking better than Defense Secretary John Keller from Transformers, or the miserable performance as FDR.

As for the movie itself, I’d say rent it, especially you train fans out there. What does the rest of the movie entail, you ask? How about a runaway train with a one way ticket to Hell? Inevitably, the train will crash. Up until that point, the madness on screen keeps you entertained. A special bonus is Rebecca De Mornay, who I have never known to be so cute. Actually, if you look at her pictures now, man what a hot ass old chick!

Now of course, there are some special effects slip-ups here and there, but pretty good for 1985. A memorable line to remember is this one, though bizarre: “That’s your mama’s fart hole, Ranken. The bitch is loud.”

So check out the movie. On the Arousal Scale, I give it Stone Cold Rock Hard.