In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

I wasn't expecting much from this film but it surprised me. Yes the budget was small, but the acting surprised me, as did the story. The characters had enough development to keep me engaged, Patrick Stewart added his refined seniority, Pierce Brosnan acted the foolhardy gung-ho very well (a preview of his bond days to come). Not brilliant, but deserves more stars than it has. I suspect the low rating has more to do with the cover art and age than the actual content.In short: if you like a predictable action film pitting good against evil (USA vs Russians hehe) this one is worth checking out. The characters are more than two-dimensional, breaking out of the stereotypes one would expect of a direct-to-VHS feature. Give it a look!

With such a strong cast, one would like to assume that the movie would be good. However, lame is the word that comes to mind. I am surprised Brosnan would do such a poor film. The story itself was great, but the screen writer/directs and whoever else is ultimately responsible should be shot. I will admit that I watched the entire movie, because I never gave up hope that it would get better. It reminds me of Segal movies, all of which seem to follow this line of thinking, which does not seem to be completely developed! Shame on Patrick Stewart as well. Another fine actor who was tarnished by this movie. I can only hope that some or all of these actors were fulfilling some type of contractual agreements to participate in this film.

It might have been made for TV but it's certainly not your standard made for TV fodder.Firstly let's talk about the cast. Christopher Lee - Movie Superstar of Hammer Films. Patrick Stewart, star of TV, stage and cinema. Pierce Brosnan, Movie Superstar. Alexandra Paul, of TV's Baywatch.Ted Levine I thought was someone else, I mistook him for Martin Mull.The basic idea is good enough, someone steals some plutonium, builds 2 bombs, put 1 on hijacked train travelling across Europe and involve a rogue Russian General trying to restart the ghosts of the Cold War.Christopher Lee plays the rogue Russian General extremely well, you can tell he's playing by his own rules.Patrick Stewart is playing a pretty standard role for him here, it's an authority figure in command. Someone had obviously seen him in Star Trek and thought of him for this role. They maybe also saw him in this which made them think of him for X-men.Brosnan plays his basic action man role but also has a streak of lovable impish rogue to Alexandra Paul's very straight laced role. We have a Russian traitor in the unit which smacks of hatred for the old enemy, sadly it seems from the US film industry no matter how friendly The West is with The Russians their never far from detecting Reds Under The Bed.There's lots of good action, helicopters chasing trains. Defusing bombs. Slightly rubbish mercenaries.Overall the film is really good and exceeds the usual fair of Made For TV. Well worth a look if you haven't seen it and stands up to several viewings as well.

Even if there had not been stars like Stewart and Brosnan, the movie would have been a great disappointment. To be precise, this is the biggest piece of crap I have ever seen. Want examples? 1. I've never seen such lame "action" scenes (even if the train had stopped at every single station along the way, there would not have been so many people shuffling back and forth as the accumulated number of entries and exits by the SWAT team, not to mention their really "excellent" shooting skills). 2. Really lame German cops. They may not be as flashy as a U.S. SWAT team, but they are NOT dumb! 3. At the Zagreb station, when the Baywatch babe finds out about the Russian's phone call, there is an announcement in the background calling for people to board a FLIGHT (even in Croatia, airplanes do not land at train stations....) 4. In one scene, a guy on the bad Russian's team talks Croatian for a few sentences, then switches to Russian. 5. The modified camera had a fully automatic, built-in transmitter to GNN headquarters, can you get me one of these? 6. One of my favorites: The German dispatcher has absolutely no problems fumbling with the Swiss, Italian, Slovenian and Croatian railway systems. They can all be controlled via his computer. Can you get me on of these? 7. Whatever the Baywatch babe fires her gas grenades from, that's not an M203. 8. It's pretty hard to hit a window on a moving train with unguided rockets fired from a helicopter. (...)Oh Jean-Luc, what have they paid you for this? If I had to guess, I 'd say a billion dollars....