Audiences don’t seem to be flocking to the cineplex for realism anymore. Whereas the believable epic “Gone with the Wind” was once the highest-grossing film of all time, so was the more fictionalized “Jaws” after it and, more recently, “Avatar.”
Had “Last Passenger,” the debut feature from British director Omid Nooshin, come out at the time of “Gone with the Wind,” or even “Jaws,” it probably would have been received differently: praised for its character study, appreciated for its structured thrill ride. But in the age of “Avatar,” it hits somewhere around the middle ground, between the aforementioned positivity and a consensus of cheesy action-film mockery.
To the film’s benefit, it does a thorough job of making sure that everyone in its small, close-knit cast is extensively and trivially detailed, from their occupations and intentions to their families and personal interests. The star of the show, Lewis Shaler (Dougray Scott), is a doctor and widower hurriedly trying to make it to the hospital via rail train, accompanied by his harmlessly playful son Max (Joshua Kaynama).
Casual character development allows him to know his fellow passengers: Sarah Barwell (Kara Tointon), a youthful blonde who flirts with Lewis despite their obvious age gap; Jan Klimowski (Iddo Goldberg), a rowdy Russian man who generally opposes authority; and Peter Carmichael (David Schofield), an older gentleman who just wants to do things by the book.
Slowly but surely, the handful of displayed personalities notice that they are the only ones remaining on an ominously broken speeding train, the brake lines cut and the regular stops being passed by. Approaching their psychotic driver is fruitless – the doors are locked, and with no blunt objects in sight to ram them down, the protagonists are left to roam the passenger cars until they come up with a good enough idea to either escape or stop the train themselves.
The first third of the film, though interesting and cute with its playful interactions between Lewis and Sarah, is despairingly slow. For a film advertised as a thriller, especially an indie thriller, viewers should come expecting innovation and excitement from the relative get-go. “Last Passenger” takes its sweet time getting to the point, but even then, the point isn’t very apparent.
Nooshin attempts to make his film, made on a notably small budget of $2.5 million, a suspensefully isolated trip. In some ways he succeeds – very little of the film is shot outside of railcars nearly duplicate in appearance. The atmosphere is at times claustrophobic but also chaotic, drawn on by foggy views of police cars unable to catch the unstoppable diesel-fueled behemoth. Nooshin doesn’t focus on making the driver the enemy, but rather on positioning the characters in a helpless situation, forced to work with each other when hope is at its bleakest.
In a way, it’s Hitchcockian. The slow loom of despair, the focused interior set and even the dramatic score reminisce to a time when tension was appreciated over a refreshing storyline. Unfortunately, those times are all but gone, and the crawling expansion of the film’s already simplistic plot doesn’t help much.
By the end of it all – the morally satisfying, though farcically unsatisfying end of it all – “Last Passenger” is alright, a balance between good and bad, which, in the way of action movies in particular, means a balance between worthwhile viewing and fantastically effective background noise. It’s pretty passive, somewhat unrealistic, fairly charming and very, very British. For Nooshin, at the very least, it’s a reasonably decent start.
– Sebastian Torrelio