| | | You Can't Escape Your Lies.
Features: DVD
One of those legendary train trips that people used to dream about taking, the Transsiberian Express has probably seen better days. An American couple, Roy (Woody Harrelson) and Jessie (Emily Mortimer), decide to return home the long way from their recent sojourn in Peking and meet another couple from the West, Carlos (Eduardo Noriega) and Abby (Kate Mara), with whom they quickly form that tenuous bond that often unites fellow travelers away from home. When Roy gets separated from the train at a stopover, Jessie begins to realize that their compatriots aren't exactly who or what they seem to be. But the real dangers of their unforgettable trip have only begun to surface; Russian cops (Ben Kingsley plays one), mobsters, and locals are still to come.
"This is one train that you shouldn't miss." Jenni Miller, Premiere
"A vigorous, fast-paced tale that entwines plot with character and psychology set against an incredibly exotic backdrop." Kirk Honeycutt, The Hollywood Reporter
"...a genuine sleeper that jump-starts an almost extinct genre." Lou Lumenick, New York Post
"...a fine showcase for [Anderson's] versatility, adding to an impressive, under-the-radar resume..." Scott Tobias, The Onion A.V. Club
"An engagingly up-to-date melodrama steeped in local color and steered by a treacherous sense of morality." Todd McCarthy, Variety
Editor's Note
With TRANSSIBERIAN, Brad Anderson proves once again that he has an exceptional ability to craft a suspenseful thriller. Leaving behind the overtly Hitchockian style that made THE MACHINIST such an interesting formal exercise, Anderson this time shoots his film in color and roots it firmly in the present. Roy (Woody Harrelson) and Jessie (Emily Mortimer) have just finished working with children overseas as part of a church project. Before flying back to the States, they decide to travel from Beijing to Moscow on the Trans-Siberian Express train, where they meet two fellow travelers, the handsome Carlos (Eduardo Noriega) and young Abby (Kate Mara). The couples bond, but gradually Jessie becomes worried that her new friends are involved in drug trafficking. At that point, the web has been spun, and when the intimidating Russian detective, Grinko (Ben Kingsley), arrives, Roy and Jessie become innocent targets in a dangerous chase.Anderson's script, co-written with Will Conroy, helps to elevate TRANSSIBERIAN beyond mere thriller status. Without the suspense, it remains a well-executed portrait of a complicated relationship between two real people. Mortimer is her usual fantastic self, and it's fun to watch Harrelson play an average, upbeat American guy. Throw the always riveting Kingsley into the mix and you have a motion picture that is above average in every way. By the time the film reaches its payoff, viewers will have felt as if they, too, took a ride on the Trans-Siberian Express.
| Features | Audio: English, Spanish | | Dubbed: Spanish | | Interactive Menus | | Scene Selection | | Subtitles: English, Spanish |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: FIRST LOOK HOME ENTERTAIN |
| Release Date: 7/21/2009 |
| Running Time: 111 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 2008 | | Catalog ID: 12499 | | UPC: 00687797124999 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: English | | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | Widescreen |
| Cast & Crew
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| | Professional Reviews | Empire
4 stars out of 5 -- "[T]he film's familiar plotlines are given added zing from the claustrophobic train and the stunning landscapes, while Mortimer convinces as the good girl with the bad girl past." 03/01/2009Salon.com 7 of 10
Harrelson can't wrestle a believable human out of this underwritten caricature named Roy, I am afraid, but Mortimer's Jessie, who at first seems a demure Christian from Middle America, is a delicate but ferocious construction, defined by urges and desires she battles but can't quite control. As Jessie and Roy rattle through the surprisingly beautiful snowbound towns along the Trans-Siberian Express (which takes six days to go from Beijing to Moscow), they fall in with an obviously sketchy couple...As recent patchwork-grade thrillers go, "Transsiberian" is a perfectly decent effort. I wasn't bored, and the turmoil and torment in Mortimer's performance are totally convincing. But like so many films in its genre, "Transsiberian" evinces a closed-down attitude toward the world, as if delivering -- with a certain ass-on-couch smugness -- the message that handsome Spanish globetrotters, worldly Russian cops and even spouses with a past are never to be trusted, and you might be better off observing them from afar. It's stretching a point to describe "Transsiberian" as a companion piece to "The Dark Knight," maybe, but both films congratulate the audience for a passive and cynical attitude that is both the ideal and the inevitable position of an overdosed spectator-consumer in our society. - Andrew O'Hehir
The Village Voice 5 of 10
Though not one for literal smoke and mirrors, master of horror Brad Anderson, with his panache for arousing fear from harried reality and rotted atmosphere, is still a shaman. In his latest spooker, Anderson locates dread not just inside his characters' psyches but also in the lines across a babushka's face, the insides of a matryoshka doll, and Ben Kingsley's ushanka. The setting this time is the wintriest wasteland of Siberia, through which a train lumbers toward Moscow from China with a bobble-headed Christian dweeb (Woody Harrelson) and his wife Jessie (Emily Mortimer) on board, plus a lascivious Spaniard (Eduardo Noriega), a fishy narcotics officer (Kingsley), and a half-dozen other easily excitable foreigners seemingly pulled from Eli Roth's go-to central casting. At its queasy best--when absorbing the naturally phantasmagoric vibes of Siberia and surveying Jessie's grueling efforts to discard a backpack filled with unwanted goods--Transsiberian more subtly critiques our American sense of privilege than any of Roth's Hostel pictures. But just as nasty as the titular mode of transport is the script's wanton declaration of theme and a cynical and fashionable belief in moral grayness that may complement the frosty setting but nonetheless feels easy. - Ed Gonzalez
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