Night Train to Venice (1996)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Sorry, this movie sucks

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

I saw the rating of 2.0 when I browsed the four films on this DVD. I wasn't expecting much, but I expected a bit more than this. Hugh Grant, Malcolm McDowell, a suspense thriller, I thought maybe a 3 or even a 4/10.But there was not a single redeemable quality to it, not one and the 2.0 average rating looks extremely generous. You find yourself asking all sorts of questions throughout, outside of the obvious "what the hell am I wasting my time with this for". Why characters are doing what they are doing, why has this happened, what it is, why has it gone to slow-motion...but they're all rhetorical questions as you know nobody has the faintest idea, even those that wrote it probably.The end makes no sense - following on nicely from the previous 90 minutes. The cameraman at times was either sloshed or in hysterics (probably at taking a wage for a film like this) that the shots jump around all over the place, I'm sure he trips over while filming at one point.There's an recurring focus on a pigeon flying around the sky, which at first is unnecessary and irritating but by the end the pigeon is one of the few who come away with any credit at all and leave with his head held high.By my reckoning Hugh Grant and Vera have sex three times within 24 hours of meeting and by the end of the first full night are chatting away like they're Terry and June when in reality they've known each other less than a day.There are some films down at the 1/10s, the Robin Askwith ones, where they are so bad they are quite amusing for it. This wasn't one of those.

Two further oddities in this surrealistic mess: this seems actually to be the last film the Swedish born actress Kristina Söderbaum ever made. In the Thirties and Forties she was a big star of Nazi cinema and appeared in propaganda films such as the anti-semitic JUD SUESS (1940) and KOLBERG (1945), directed by her husband Veit Harlan. After the war she was much criticized for her participation in these pictures, so maybe the old lady thought she would do something good appearing in a film where she gets threatened by Neo-Nazis and has visions of burning books. In any case it is an ironic choice as well as a sad one, as she was a capable actress and would have deserved a much better good-bye to the screen than that.The second oddity I somewhat nerdily noticed is that this film was written by Leo Tichat who directed some kind of Austrian "Nouvelle Vague" attempt with the feature-length DIE VERWUNDBAREN (The Vulnerable Ones, 1967), which was released as part of a "essential Austrian cinema" DVD series a few years ago. This film also has a reputation of pioneering the unbiased treatment of gay people in cinema, but apart from that it is a dreary unwatchable mess. He also wrote the screenplay to another semi-legendary Austrian failure, EGON SCHIELE - EXZESSE (1981) starring Matthieu Carrière, Jane Birkin and Marcel Ophüls.

I'm generally not somebody who'd criticize, but this movie deserves to be exposed. It's the worst piece of cinematography I've ever seen and I have been leading the film club at our school, so I saw all the amateur crap pupils brought in. For goodness sake, home movies of babies sleeping motionless are more interesting. This movie sucks so much, that if you own it, you'll never need a vacuum cleaner again! It's so dull that in comparison even cotton candy seems like a razor sharp object! Neonazies chase the leading character, but he is able to walk away from them in an empty train cart, only to run into them later on and escape by allowing them to get killed at his convenience.Come on, even when you see the sexual scenes between the leading actors (and the lady is hot) you'll just say to your self, why do they show this. Shouldn't they rather end it? And when they finally end the movie, you're not even glad the torture is over, you actually get angry at them for waiting until the end. Trust me, it's the time you'd better spend with the TV turned off.I'm seriously considering contacting my lawyer and making a civil suit against the director for not committing suicide before finishing this movie.

This had real possibilities, but seems to have blown them with confusing writing and direction. I have to agree almost completely with the comment "night train to confusion and boredom." I would give it maybe just a little more credit than that, because it's loaded with fine acting by Hugh Grant, Malcolm McDowell (a favorite of mine since "A Clockwork Orange") and others, and it has some marvelous sets and costumes. One clue I take from watching this and "The Orient Express" is NEVER ride on "The Orient Express." It's way too dangerous and spooky. Actually, I'm sure that portions of a real trip across Europe on the refurbished train would be quite delightful, but as horror goes--take a hint; don't run upstairs, run away from the monsters, and don't take the Orient Express. All those typical mistakes and more can be found in virtually every mediocre horror flick. You'd think they'd learn; or better still write some horror that's not so damned obvious.