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Ben Kingsley is man of the moment just lately War Inc, Elegy, The Wackness and Love Guru all proving successful in their different genre groups, now Kingsley heads for the Transsiberian railway on a journey from China to the Soviet Union along the way a mystery, drug smuggling, and one of the most prolonged and unrelenting murder scenes your likely to see for some time.

Born again Christians Roy (Woody Harrelson) and Jessie (Emily Mortimer) are planning the ultimate trip, which for train spotter Roy is a dream come true, a trip on the Transsiberian railway. This loving couple have something nesting in their past, sex is off the cards and there is tension between them; for Roy the break is not only a chance to fulfil a dream, but to rescue the damage caused by recent events. Having started on very rocky grounds it seems Roy has been granted all his dreams, that is of course until Abby (Kate Mara) and Carlos (Eduardo Noriega) turn up to share their cabin, the two have their own demons and between the four their relationships are really put to the test.

Transsiberian starts incredibly well, there is a whole load of history and mystery from the movies offset, nothing very much is explained leaving the viewer asking a lot of questions about the story as it unfolds. But then after the promising start the movie becomes like a tossed deck of cards, the pieces falling everywhere, some of the cards never being recovered leaving voids in the movies storyline, and most importantly a real deficit in the characters further development.

As the movie diversifies, its standards move from big budget blockbuster thriller, to nasty afternoon TV movie. It's at this point that Ben Kingsley enters, as a incredibly unconvincing Russian Police Officer called Grinko. You have to ask what in earth was going through Kingsley's mind, because while his career path has been an unusual one this is like putting Pacino in an episode of the X-Files. Kingsley realises or at least you hope he realises that things in the movie are not too great and puts in only half an effort.

So what's so bad? The movies real problems nest in the screenplay, the performances other than Kingsleys are all pretty good. It's as if the writers Brad Anderson and Will Conroy had tried to create a story as complex as a series of TV show Lost. So much time and effort is spent assembling all the pieces of the puzzle, then realising several restrictions many of these are just cast aside. You would think that with the running

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