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 time marginally under two hours in length that little could have been left out, but this is certainly not the case. AS if to torment the viewer, having discarded all the aspects you really were enjoying the writers then begin to fill the movie with stuffing, lots of padding on all the wrong subjects. During the movie two of the main characters disappear, and the reactions from those that remain is far from convincing.
It's not all bad; the movie looks beautiful and is enhanced by a most unexpected and really shocking murder at the mid section of the movie. You expect something to really kick off between the two characters involved, but this was a hundred miles from rational thought. You may be thinking that the surprise is now ruined, but this is not the case, when I saw the movie there was no publicity, now months on the movie is being offered as a murder mystery.
For a percentage of the movie the story remains the right side of reality, but as it draws to a close it becomes like a James Bond movie with a special bad guy base, a pretty tense train collision, and some diabolical lines from the remaining cast.
If you have a passion for travel to some level the movie is essential viewing, most of the settings and landscapes are breathtaking and in high definition it's like you're really there, but make sure you have a strong constitution before viewing because there are scenes of violence and torture straight out of a Saw movie.