Dave Hodder takes a look at racing survival thriller Night Train.
Night Train opens with a testosterone-fuelled drag race, where a self assured racer is soundly beaten, and then the window of his opponent’s car is rolled down to reveal a female driver.
Holly McCord, played by Danielle Chuchran, is a single mother who is struggling to pay her bills and medical expenses for her sick son. We’re then introduced to Sparky, a cop with obvious baggage, played by Jillian Tremaine, who is on the hunt for drug smugglers. Not illegal drugs but prescription drugs. These smugglers must be stopped because, in the words of Sparky’s boss “They’re upsetting big pharma”.
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Sparky is successful in partially shutting this route down, and as a result Holly is unable to affordably obtain the medication for her son. Holly comes up with a plan to run the drugs herself and colludes with her local supplier to get the shipment to the head of the operation in Las Vegas using her souped-up racing SUV which is named Night Train.
When her run is a success she meets with the creepy Mr Maxwell, who is the kingpin, and he offers her a bonus for a job well done and “other favours”. Holly declines to provide any other favours but is given the bonus anyway. This bonus, according to her local supplier and now love interest – which is a development that feels as though it happens too quickly and feels forced – means that she is locked in to working for Mr Maxwell.
The film then moves into a back and forth between the Holly smuggling plotline and the Sparky stop-the-smugglers plotline in such a way that they do not move the respective plots along, but rather they tend to interrupt each other. Aside from a chance meeting at a gas station the two main characters do not interact with each other or join plotlines until quite late in the movie.
Sandwiched into this is a sub-plot where Holly is testing a motorbike on salt flats and an accident leads to a father-daughter bonding moment, which is actually a nice moment and does feel very freeing for Holly. Without entirely giving away the whole story or the ending, Holly and Sparky meet up, clash, and – it being a car movie – end up in a car chase scene, which is one of the slowest car chases I have ever seen. I nearly found myself pressing an imaginary accelerator pedal just to get them to speed up.
The penultimate act of Night Train had the potential to be rather moving, working towards a resolution between the characters, but like the love interest it just seemed forced. The ending though, is somewhat sweet, with echoes of a classic western.
Unfortunately, with pacing issues throughout, Night Train just isn’t as high-octane as it hopes to be.
Night Train is out on digital platforms on 11th December from Vertigo Releasing.
