Subway (1985)

Purely Joyful Movie!

How sad is this?

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

If you want an early-80s French film that looks good and has a perceptible plot, try DIVA instead of this eye-popping failure.I agree that Besson has a wonderful visual sense, and he obviously loves the Metro (as I do too, having visited Paris not long after this film was made). But all the cool costumes, chases, and quirky characters can't make up for the absence of a decent story. (Jeunet figured this out and made MICMACS, a much better film about quirky characters who live at the fringe of society.) There's a wonderful car chase at the opening and then it's literally downhill from there. Blackmail, a holdup, a bizarre rock band in an underground music store (featuring composer Eric Serra on bass), a dysfunctional marriage...they're all mixed together, topped off with an awful ending.Serra's score is a great example of 1980s synth/jazz, unfortunately spoiled here and there by completely idiotic lyrics. Fans of Besson, lovers of subways, or folks needing an 80s overdose might enjoy this film. And whatever you do, avoid the dubbed version, which unfortunately was all that was available from my streaming video source.

I was in high school when subway came out and it ran at the rep theater in my town. the first foreign and subtitled movie I even saw. It changed my life-I fell in love Christopher Lambert, car chases, foreign film and the buwaunwaun of the bass. I saw it 6 times on the big screen. All grown up now and its been a long time but I watched it again and loved it just the same. In no way is it a perfect movie, but in that is its strength. the kwirkyness of the story and characters blended with the atmospheric soundtrack creates a fun modern day twisted fairytale - a rare movie. a worthy movie. Like all good french cheese, a little stinky but thats what makes it all the better

Subway is Luc Besson's finest hour; it is one of those movies the self-proclaimed experts of cinematography love to hate for the very same reason aged rock critics hated Kraftwerk and Depeche Mode in the eighties because they didn't play guitars. The simple truth, however, is Subway is more of a MOVIE than many of the classics of the canon, simply because it deals less with narrative in the traditional sense and much more with visual aesthetics - compared to print media it is closer to comics than to books; Subway is the movie equivalent of cult comics such as Brothers Hernandez' Love and Rockets and Liberatore/Tamburini's RanXerox rather than the Great Gatsby. So when written off as empty and superficial it is hardly a fair criticism because Besson did so obviously not try to make a traditional movie when he did Subway. Writing it off as pure junk is like writing off instrumental music because there's no singing.Subway is, in many ways, an eighties postmodern fairytale where our young new wave hero, Fred, sets out to get the girl of his dreams, Helena. What follows, though, is exactly that, a dream, made of dark, underground labyrinths, cold neon light and electro-funk sounds courtesy of Eric Serra who, by the way, stars in the movie as himself, producing the music which is the soundtrack of the feature. The Paris metro underground is inhabited by its own community and the symbolism is stunningly clear and charming - we're dealing with the SUBculture of the SUBway, this is the underground. And of course Fred wants to form a rock band too.The plot IS very simple - after all, it's a fairytale - and this is not a weakness, quite the contrary. Subway is not pretentious at all but delves instead into style, humour and something which can best be described as sheer industrial aesthetics; quite frankly this is the movie that will make you love all the cold, neon-lit underground corridors in the world. And then you don't even know if you get a happy end or not.All in all an absolute favourite of mine plus a rare chance to see a stunning performance by Christophe Lambert. Oh and great haircuts.

I love French cinema, just so you know. However... This movie has no plot, no character development, no vision, and no coherence. It starts nowhere and goes nowhere. It doesn't so much "end" as much as it just "stops". I own this film on DVD, and I can't even give it away because I'd feel responsible for whoever else would watch it. Besson is a master. Even the masters can craft some dreck. This is a terrible, terrible, terrible film.