IMDb: all cast 

When I visited my brother in a suburb of Chicago one year, I took a similar train at the crack of dawn and arrived downtown. At rush hour on that same day, I took the outbound train and reached the same platform at the station where I boarded, but on the opposite side. Of course, my ride was a mundane exercise that many people repeated day after day, and likely an uneventful routine, at all.

So Michael McCauley, just like any other day, rides the train that gets him to work downtown. Shortly after arriving at the office, he gets canned because of poor performance. Despite his pleas of financial problem and being a sexagenarian, nothing can save him from the cut-throat life insurance business.

To nurse his desolation, he goes to his usual haunt, a NYPD’s watering hole he frequented while he was a detective. He meets his ex-partner, Alex Murphy ( Robocop?), and tells him the jam he is in. Before long, Michael’s ex- and Alex’s current boss, Captain Hawthorne walks in, and go over for some quick causeries. After theirs  “really…” interlude, Michael quickly realizes the train is departing soon, so he leaves.

It’s a crowded train with many standing for the lack of seats. As soon as it arrives at the first scheduled stop, a few seats are now empty. Michael takes an empty 4-seaters, 2×2 facing each other, and starts reading. Joanna, a stranger, causally takes the seat across Michael. She describes to him a small challenge, when completed, that will land him $100,000. At the next station Joanna departs with an understanding that Michael has accepted.

From there on it’s a bumpy ride – old communal train on old tracks. Michael paces up and down to find his “target”, and while he goes from cart to cart, fights break out, and people start to die…

So what is wrong with this film? Nothing really, unless you nitpick at the plausibility of the story. In other words, don’t, and let the ride takes you to where it will end, and I guarantee it’s a bang, a big bang, BARA-T-BARA-BOOM. And then in the next hour you forget all about it.

Enjoy!