Top Scenes of Mere Mortals vs. Trains

Share on Facebook posted 03-31-09 by Julina Tatlock

After weeks of watching every train-centered action sequence I could get my hands on, I’ve come to an important conclusion: When fighting on, riding on, or standing in front of a moving locomotive, it is much, much better to possess superhuman powers. Nonetheless, there are some mere mortals who do manage to make train action pretty damned exciting.

Clearly, if a character is not immortal, he won’t be blithely tossing a train aside or stopping it with his bare hands, like Will Smith in Hancock. The action is therefore generally not as big and spectacular when it’s mortal vs. train. But it doesn’t need to be, as long as there is believable physical conflict in which lives are in peril and you feel the potential for catastrophic destruction that is always present in a 3,800-ton locomotive hurtling along the tracks at 70 mph. Humans seem awfully small and vulnerable in the face of such a potent force.

Two of cinema’s very best train scenes, in the original Taking of Pelham One Two Three and The French Connection, don’t have many special effects, but they are scary and compelling nonetheless.

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three

The original Pelham, starring Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw (Quint from Jaws), is a gripping hostage tale with no special effects but plenty of drama. This is one of my favorite films of all time. Especially wonderful in Pelham is the funny and pathetic portrayal of the Mayor of New York in the grim and desperate ’70s. Also of interest is that the bad guys all call themselves by colors — “Mr. Blue,” “Mr. Grey,” etc. (sound familiar, Quentin?). This scene is the climax of the film, and believe me, the first time I saw it, I was sweating with anxiety that these hostages would not survive. So was much of New York City, for whose residents the movie had such a disturbing ring of truth at the time that it felt less like fiction than a clear-eyed documentary of the possible.

Pelham One Two Three — Original Trailer

This is the 1974 trailer:

Pelham 123: The Remake

Denzel Washington and John Travolta star in the remake that premieres on June 12. The trailer looks excellent in terms of action — there are bigger car crashes and gunfights than in the original — but it makes me wonder if the filmmakers have lost the focus on the city and the characters that made the original movie so gripping. Call me crazy, but I can’t really buy Denzel as “just a guy, just a guy on the other end of the mike”; he’s never really good at that regular-fellow stuff. He’s too good-looking, too smart-sounding and too strong. Did I mention that the original is one of my favorite films?

The French Connection

This scene is usually thought of as a car chase, but you could argue that it’s really a train chase. Again, no special effects, but some pretty intense action.

Mission: Impossible

This actually brings up a different question: Is Tom Cruise human?

Either way, the real action in this scene is created by the wind. The wind is awesome. As with many action-adventure films, the action in this scene blows past the quality of the writing or the acting — the actors look a little like they could be in a Marcel Marceau competition — but I always appreciate the introduction of real, physical elements in what is largely a CGI scene.

Honorable Mention: U.S. Marshals

They had to try something to top Harrison Ford’s heart-stopping dive from the dam in The Fugitive, and this is it: Wesley taking a Tarzan leap/nosedive/bungie jump onto a train. Wow. That would’ve been amazingly cool … if only it were a surprise.