REVIEW - Transsiberian

Alfred Hitchcock has been gone for quite a while now, but his genius still looms large over the film world. His films were tight, well-acted, and technically polished. We're still waiting for a director to approach this level of proficiency in suspense filmmaking (M. Night Shyamalan has been trying for who knows how long, but his insistence on gimmicks, dumb twists and wooden acting is holding him back), but if I had to choose, I'd say the closest thing we have right now is this guy named Brad Anderson. Perhaps you know of him? WELL YOU SHOULD.

Anderson started out making romantic comedies like Next Stop Wonderland (a delightful film starring Hope Davis and Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Happy Accidents (which, despite it being something of a time-travel film featuring Vincent D'Onofrio and Marisa Tomei, I still haven't seen). Both films were well-reviewed Sundance favorites.

His next film was the thriller Session 9, which was decidedly not a romantic comedy. The story of asbestos workers cleaning out an abandoned insane asylum is pretty crazy. He followed that with The Machinist, famous as "the film that Christian Bale lost all that weight for". Both films have some creepy, reality-bending elements to them and kept you guessing till the very end.

To recap: I've seen three of the guy's films, and really enjoyed all of them, and the one I haven't seen yet is a time-travel film with Marisa Tomei so I think it's a safe bet that one doesn't suck. So when Brad Anderson makes a film, as a general rule I will see it. I'm not sure there's a director that has the kind of batting average he has with me.

Transsiberian takes the high tension and mystery skills displayed in Anderson's last two films and brings it to that undeniably Hitchcockian setting of strangers on the train. Woody Harrelson and Emily Mortimer are a missionary couple on their way from China to Moscow. Along the way, they meet up with a young couple (played by Edouardo Noriega and Kate Mara) who are nice but also as sketchy as humanly possible. And who shows up along the way but Sir Ben Kingsley and Thomas Kretchmann as a pair of Russian cops who just happen to also be along for the ride. Chaos ensues.

The film mainly rests on the shoulders of Emily Mortimer, who is way more talented than her IMDb profile might suggest. Her character, Jessie, is a woman with a past, and while desperately trying to do the right thing, the wrong things just keep piling up around her. Woody Harrelson's Roy is a simple guy in the Woody from Cheers mold except with a train hobby, but Harrelson keeps him from devolving into some kind of stupid hick. Sir Ben Kingsley seems to be taking whatever roles are offered to him (he was in a Uwe Boll movie!) these days, but for once he's in a film that gives him something at least mildly challenging to do. He hasn't been this much fun since Sneakers, though he was much crazier in Sexy Beast. This is a more understated role for the legendary actor.

While ruminating on the film I am continually reminded of Hitchcock, as well as the old school film noirs. Plotwise, at least. Visually, it's pretty far from the traditional noir look, sort of a reverse noir with all the snow around and the leafless forests and generally bleak landscape that these characters inhabit. Frequently, I could see the film about to turn into something grievously stupid in the way that only Hollywood can, but Anderson is better than that and surprises us by going in a different, bolder, more interesting direction.

One might be tempted into thinking Transsiberian is another one of those Stupid First World Tourists Get What's Coming To Them sort of films - and maybe we're meant to think that way going in, and maybe it is (but only a little bit) - but it's much more than that. Check this one out, guys, it is a tight little thriller.