Hell Train (1985)
Hell Train is a French film based on a true story. One evening at a ball in a small town, a fight breaks out in an atmosphere tinged with racism. Three of the ringleaders end up at the police station. The next day, November 14, 1983, on the Bordeaux-Ventimiglia train, the three men who were candidates for enlistment in the Foreign Legion beat Habib Grimzi, a 26-year-old Algerian, before throwing him out of a window. A young woman, who witnessed the murder, alerted the police. The investigation begins in a climate of extreme tension. In the city, provocations and attacks are increasing...
Watch Trailer
Cast
Similar titles
Reviews
Pretty Good
Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.
The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.
Blistering performances.
Based on a true story which sadly may happen again today.There were harsh words said of this plea against racism at the time of issue ,and I can see little fault with the opinions expressed ,including that of the precedent user;it proves,one more time,that good intentions do not walk hand in hand with good results.Roger Hanin stepped into two of his predecessors' shoes:André Cayatte and Yves Boisset ,whose "Dupont-Lajoie" he probably had in mind .But these two directors,often unfairly despised by the "true" connoisseurs of the French cinema ,the likes of the N.V. clique,had ,by and large,firm and strong screenplays and they knew how to direct their actors (remember Jean Carmet and Jean-Pierre Marielle in "Dupont -Lajoie".) In Hanin' s flick ,they are left to their own devices,and even good thespians such as Robin Renucci and the late Christine Pascal are bad.The dialog is abysmal ,every line you hear is a cliché ;so heavy-handed ,as the precedent user aptly wrote ,it's sometimes involuntarily comic.One can save ,at a pinch ,the last sequence ,told in the third conditional ,which shows some emotion .NB:not to be confused with Gilles Grangier's eponymous movie (1965).
I was about eleven when this movie was released and it was annouced as a great piece of "educational" cinema. After seeing it again on TV, I must say that it shows its age. The story is very manichean and flat, the characters one-dimensional at best. All french people are ugly, stupid racists, except the jewish police inspector, played by director Roger Hanin himself. All the arabs are nice, racism is just born from the sheer evil of the french. Hanin was never a very subtle actor -nor director- but here he really surpasses himself. Instead of delivering an enlightening sociological piece, he just turns up with a mediocre, preachy politically correct (in the worse sense) comic book. Bleah !