Thursday, October 16, 2008

MOVIE: Transsiberian

Rating: Hey, this was good!
Viewed: Thurs., Oct. 16, 2008
Crossroads Cheapie
Rotten Tomato Rating: 92%
Mine: Not quite that high, 80??
EW: B- cag: B+
Genre: Suspense Thriller
Released: July 18, 2008
R (1 hr. 51 min.)
Directed by: Brad Anderson

Woody Harrelson was cutely innocent and fun to watch. Eduardo Noriega, a 35-year-old Spanish hottie, was gorgeous, Kate Mara was intriguing. It's always fun to watch good old Ben Kingsley, too. I enjoyed the acting choices, other than Emily Mortimer. I think you were supposed to really "feel" for her, but I didn't. Since I didn't sympathize with her, I was ambivalent about her outcome, which made the storyline less suspensful for me, not a bad thing -- I just sat back and enjoyed all the plot twists without the nail-biting.

A youngish couple (Harrelson and Mortimer) are traveling from China to Moscow, across Siberia, on a six-day train ride. They are joined in their tiny sleeper by another couple (Oriega and Mara). Drug runners, good cops/bad cops, dour Russians, drunken Russians, a bit of intrigue, and lots of snowy miles later, an interesting story unfolds. What I liked best is that it's not so convoluted that you have to think and scratch your head and try to figure out how all the loose ends fit together. It works. And it was very, very entertaining.

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