Plot
Two escaped convicts and a female railway worker find themselves trapped on a train with no brakes and nobody driving.

Release Year: 1985

Rating: 7.3/10 (11,930 voted)

Director: Andrey Konchalovskiy

Stars: Jon Voight, Eric Roberts, Rebecca De Mornay

Storyline
A hardened convict and a younger prisoner escape from a brutal prison in the middle of winter only to find themselves on an out-of-control train with a female railway worker while being pursued by the vengeful head of security.

Writers: Djordje Milicevic, Paul Zindel

Cast:
Jon Voight - Oscar 'Manny' Manheim
Eric Roberts - Buck McGeehy
Rebecca De Mornay - Sara
Kyle T. Heffner - Frank Barstow
John P. Ryan - Warden Ranken
T.K. Carter - Dave Prince
Kenneth McMillan - Eddie MacDonald
Stacey Pickren - Ruby
Walter Wyatt - Conlan
Edward Bunker - Jonah
Reid Cruickshanks - Al Turner (as Reid Cruikshanks)
Dan Wray - Fat Con
Michael Lee Gogin - Short Con
John Bloom - Tall Con
Hank Worden - Old Con (as Norton E. 'Hank' Warden)

Taglines: Desperate, And Determined To Survive.

Release Date: 6 December 1985

Filming Locations: Montana, USA

Box Office Details

Budget: $9,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend: $2,601,480 (USA) (6 December 1985) (965 Screens)

Gross: $7,936,012 (USA)

Runtime: 111 min

Trivia:
Obie Weeks was an employee of the Alaska Railroad at the time of filming. He got a part in the film because he was also an aspiring actor and already a member of Actors' Equity.

Goofs:
Continuity: In the subsequent shots before the train slams into the caboose, the caboose is seen right before the collision as passing the runaway train onto the siding before it is hit.

Quotes:
Sara: Boy, I guess you guys picked the wrong train.

A modest masterpiece

Rating: 9/10

The stock title promises action and suspense, and we get that, but with a story by Akira Kurosawa, expert direction by Russian émigré Andrei Konchalovsky and superior lensing by Alan Hume, we get a study of what defines a man.

John Voight and the vastly underrated Eric Roberts play two cons who escape from a hellish gulag and board a train with no driver. Their struggle to stop the train and battle their own inner demons is the movie.

Konchalovsky creates a cold, alien, ethereal world inside the train that, in the oddest way, provides a haven for self-examination for the two leads. Rebecca de Mournay is layered into the mix, as is the indefatigable John P. Ryan as a prison warden who risks death to return his charges to custody, but the movie belongs to Voight and Roberts who both bring tremendous humanity to their finely sketched characters.

The final image is as powerful as cinema gets and marks RUNAWAY TRAIN as a modest masterpiece.

Though often criticized for producing cheap rubbish, the Cannon Group, in fact, also produced many fine films including this, 52 PICK-UP and MARIA'S LOVERS (also Konchalovsky).

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