Money Train

source: Money Train

Money Train (1995): Dir: Joseph Ruben / Cast: Wesley Snipes, Woody Harrelson, Jennifer Lopez, Robert Blake, Chris Cooper: Title suggests theft in that the money is the riches and the train is the getaway. Unfortunately viewers missed that train and had to suffer through the entire film. Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson who previously starred in White Men Can't Jump are brothers and undercover cops in the subway area. Snipes looks out for adopted brother Harrelson who is constantly in trouble due to debt. Jennifer Lopez joins them thus causing romantic divisions. Trouble arises when Harrelson decides to rob the money train leading to an ending that applauds theft. Basically another buddy flick, with director Joseph Ruben handling the action effectively without a screenwriter anywhere to be evident. Snipes and Harrelson recite tired formulas where nothing is learned. Why this film could not concentrate more on their adopted relationship is beyond me. Instead it is more or less an excuse to pair the actors up again in hopes of repeating previous success. Lopez is a romantic prop with little purpose here other than to unintentionally cause a brief division between the duo cops. Robert Blake is forgettable as the foul mouth ranting supervisor. Message of theft and brotherhood sidelined for pure nonsense. Viewers should let this train wreck pass them by. Score: 3 / 10

Why everyone is so mad about this movie! It's not that bad! I'm sure, the actors and the director Joseph Ruben (He's one of my favorite ones) do a good job, especially Jennifer Lopez (She's so hot!). Well, of course that film had to borrow a lot from Andrei Konchalovsky's masterpiece Runaway Train, but anyway, that's a good action thriller.

The first part of this film is not too bad for an action, we get the normal buddy jokes and some great lines from money train carer Robert Blake. But the film as a whole is fairly poor. It turns fairly serious after about 45 minutes and is generally down hill all the way after that. There really is not much to recommend this film, except for the scenes with Robert Blake, who, in his over the top performance, delivers some comic lines. Jennifer Lopez's character Grace has very little to do, and just really does not seem to fit in or be particularly believable in the role she is meant to play. More fine tuning of the script may have been a good idea, but then they probably thought who needs a good script or any type of continuity when we have two very bankable stars? Meaning even though the film is bad, people will unfortunately still pay money to see it. A total waste of time & money.

This is the kind of movie that makes you regret watching it, but holds on to you with the false promise that something worthwhile is going to happen eventually. It was advertised as a heist movie. The heist takes place in the last 30 minutes. Prior to that, there is less than 5 minutes of discussion about the heist, and a lot of nothing about no less than four yawn-inducing subplots. The girl, the bad boss, the mob that wants to collect a debt, and the mugger they chase, and chase. With all the time wasted on those tangents there is very nearly nothing in the way of story development for what is supposed to be the main plot. Granted the main characters need a motive and the mob provides it, but it shouldn't take literally two-thirds of the movie to establish a motive. The insidious thing about it is that, when you have to wait so long for the plot to start, you have an incentive to sit through the long prelude only to be disappointed by the most ridiculous, and simply lame, heist in memory. Skip this garbage. It's the product of some Hollywood hacks with no brains at all who don't have the sense to know when to send a script back for a re-write.

So glad I bought this buddy money pot of a buddy cop film! Starring the delightful Woody Harrelson and Wesley Snipes in a fun banter extravaganza and heist awesomeness! This definitely has its flaws but the pros outweigh everything. Chris Cooper is a great villain and Joseph Ruben directed a nice ballbusting experience! Also Donald Robertson (Robert Blake) was great as the jerk boss cop.

This movie is mediocre at best.. My biggest point here is that it seems like they were trying to "cash in" on the Lethal Weapon format, buddy cop, white guy / black guy, straight shooter, crazy guy.. Plot is paper thin and seems like a total rip off of the success of this format that worked almost 10 years prior. Just a thought.. They also seem to have tried to opt for the same soundtrack feel. It actually took me a minute to realize that it really is Jennifer Lopez in the movie. I recognized her voice immediately but she looks so much different than she does now or in movies that followed this one. AMC has it as part of "the new classics" but I have to disagree. Think there are plenty of other films that would be much better suited for this category. Overall its not unwatchable but, not really sold on watching it again..

After watching this movie I had one question, what was the point? The plot existed but was so thin that they had top fill it up with boring relationship scenes which served no purpose to the movie and a psycho-pyromaniac who gets his thrills from pushing people in the front of trains and burning women in ticket booths. The thin plot is that there are two brothers (whose names I can't remember) and there is the running joke that one is white and one is black, but the joke isn't funny. The white one has incurred a huge gambling debt and needs the money. They work as transit police who seem to have nothing better to do than to set up muggers in subway stations. Personally, I find it quite stupid because I don't think any police force has the resources to pretend to be drunks hoping to catch purse snatchers, and even then there is no point because the penalty is not that high. There is a train which carries all of the revenue from the ticket sales and it is dubbed the money train. This train has priority over all other trains and the controller, Paterson, is quite a mean little rat. The white guy, who owes lots of money, decides that he will steal the money train, and he does so. This is pretty silly because there was only one guard on the train with around three million dollars on it. Honestly, this movie was pretty poor and the struggle of actually building a plot is shown with the existence of a mad man. Personally, don't bother.

Money Train is one of those films that is NOT A MUST SEE , but it is worth a check out if it is on the TV or if you got nothing better to do on your Friday night then its worth a rent . In my opinion I found it a lot more enjoyable then White Men Can't Jump , its sort of like a down graded high speed version of Oceans 11 . The chemistry between Snipes and Harrelson is spot on and it works well for a third time . There is not much of a plot to the film just an average screw your average ass-hole boss movie which I like at this point and time because it reminds me of the relationship I have with my boss not to mention the slight money problems I'm having . Jennifer Lopez just bobs up now and then but in this case her screen presence is welcoming . I don't want to be fussy and pick out several little pieces and analyse them , this film was a simple time killing pop-corn movie that should viewed when you don't feel like watching something heavy or you'd rather check this out rather than Santa's Slay . MONEY TRAIN - 5.6 OUT 10 - THATS WHAT WE LIVE WITH .