The Last Passenger

Dougray Scott in The Last Passenger
Dougray Scott in The Last Passenger

Director: Omid Nooshin
Writers: Omid Nooshin, Andy Love, Kas Graham
Stars: Dougray Scott, Kara Tointon, Iddo Goldberg

You’ve got to admire the chutzpah of attempting to remake Speed on a British Rail commuter train to Tunbridge Wells and in many ways The Last Passenger does it rather well. Made for c£2.5 million and with the backing of the UK Film Council, this 2013 release wasn’t by any means low budget but compared to the amounts of money wasted on most Hollywood blockbusters you’re frankly talking about spare change.

The Last Passenger
The Last Passenger

It’s the last train out of London and a motley group of travellers are heading back to the wilds of Kent, including: handsome widower Lewis (Dougray Scott) and his son; Sarah (Kara Tointon), whose just getting over a break up; Polish London Underground worker Jan (Iddo Goldberg); middle class grandmother Elaine (Lindsay Duncan); and grumpy businessman Peter (David Schofield). It becomes apparent that something’s gone wrong when they speed past a number of scheduled stations and then go straight past the final stop without slowing down. It turns out that a suicidal maniac has taken control of the train and is intent on driving it straight into the barriers at the end of the line. This leaves the passengers with only half an hour or so to work out a method of escape.

This is a solid and exciting thriller which, once the opening half hour of introduction is out of the way, works up a solid pace and rarely lets it lapse. Naturally enough there are a number of unlikely plot elements (the train itself looks like something that was decommissioned in 1999, the police are conspicuous by their absence) but as an action film it holds up well. But its real strength is in the action and the writing; the decent cast turns in good performances and the interplay between the characters is very well realised, at least after a few shaky minutes at the beginning.

About Matt Blake 890 Articles
The WildEye is a blog dedicated to the wild world of Italian cinema (and, ok, sometimes I digress into discussing films from other countries as well). Peplums, comedies, dramas, spaghetti westerns... they're all covered here.

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