cashing in on the success of white men can’t jump and the failure of most of their solo vehicles ( including the cowboy way and drop zone ) , wesley snipes and woody harrelson have reteamed , hoping that they can strike up the same success .
sadly , if this dismal , cliche ridden and mind-numbingly boring action pic is anything to go by , they haven’t got a chance in hell of even coming close .
this time out , the duo play foster brothers who are transit cops .
following several run-ins with their tyrannical boss ( robert blake ) , who is obsessed with the ” money train ” –a train which carries all the subway’s takings–and will let nothing stop it ( now * there’s * an original plot device ) , harrelson’s character decides to try and take off with the cash .
along the way , both of them fall in love with the same woman–another transit cop who also hates her boss .
this leads to the typical sibling rivalry crap that you usually find in a film of this standard ( ‘you were always the better brother’ etc . etc . etc . ) , and doesn’t help to add anything to the film .
given a better script , better performers in supporting roles and a shorter running time ( the film almost went for two hours–or did it just feel like it ? ) , this film might ( and i mean * might * ) have turned out okay , but as it is , it is stocked with the worst action film cliches , whose only purpose appears to be to pad the film out to its painfully long running time .
robert blake , who plays the evil boss , has got to be the most pathetic bad guy in film history !
he sounds like wayne newton , and appears to think the best way to appear evil is to have your eyes bulging as though they are about to burst out of their sockets !
but this is only one of money train’s problems .
if you look at the script as if it was an action film , it lacks originality and suspense .
but if you try to look at it as if it were a heist film , it is even worse .
the final robbery sequence is almost trivialised and the characters definitely ain’t butch and sundance .
the film isn’t all bad though .
snipes and harrelson , when they aren’t using the dumb cliches that the script gives them , make an agreeable duo , and some of the stunt-work is indeed excellent .
but good stunt-work cannot save a bottom-of-the-barrel action movie .
if you’re a really undemanding action freak , there’s a chance you’ll like this .
but if you’re looking for something original , or suspenseful , try somewhere else–i doubt you’ll find it here .