Good concept, poorly executed.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

This film is without doubt the worst film I have ever seen, and if you think that this claim is mere hyperbole then I implore you to see it for yourself, for once you have every film you see thereafter will seem better no matter how cringe-inducing the acting or nonsensical the plot. Night Train to Venice literally has to be seen to be believed. The so-called plot sees Hugh Grant, who should be thoroughly ashamed of himself for agreeing to appear in this drivel no matter how much he needed the money, boarding the Orient Express to Venice to take a manuscript he has written exposing a neo-Nazi movement to a publishing house. However, he is being followed by a group of badly-dubbed Nazis who are as camp as Christmas and about as terrifying as tinsel.Speaking of Christmas, Grant's laughable dialogue where he states that he hopes to receive books rather than socks next year because "I'm an intellectual", is one of the few hilarious high points, though for all the wrong reasons, and leads to the first of the film's many soft-core sex scenes, interpolated with the sight of a transvestite miming to Edith Piaf. This is just one of many examples of just how random and bizarre this film is, it's as if no one involved put any effort into making it coherent. Questions are asked but are never answered, and if you are hoping for an ending where the whole thing comes together and makes sense then think again, you'll be left scratching your head long after the sight of Hugh Grant having sex for the umpteenth time has disappeared from the screen, and not because the film is complex or in any way clever, it just seems to have been thrown together without any of the filmmakers caring about plot or substance. What exactly is the point of having Malcolm MacDowell grimace at the screen in slow motion in every scene? Why are so many scenes interrupted by shots of the train going past, as if we hadn't worked out yet that the film is set on a train? The actual script can only have been about seven pages long and the director has cruelly padded it out with naff slow-motion and totally unnecessary establishing shots. If you watch this film, prepare yourself for some (unintended by the 'filmamkers') laughs but most of all to be baffled and bored by this unbelievably awful movie.

Movies that parallel reality with a surreal, dream-like existence run the risk of alienating any audience not completely in tune with the director's vision; in this case, that alienation turns to unintended comedy when journalist Hugh Grant boards the Orient Express from Munich to Venice, where neo-Nazis have sneaked aboard and threaten to cause chaos. Also on-board this train trip to Hell is Tahnee Welch as a recently-widowed stage actress, her little girl and caretaker, plus an internationally known dancer, some drag queens, and Malcolm McDowell as a tough-talking "Stranger". From what I could decipher, it appears Grant blames the presence of the Nazis on himself (he apparently wrote an unflattering piece about Skinheads), but once the train pulls into Venice (in time for Carnival!) all that business aboard the Express seems to have been forgotten. It would be impossible to credit director Carlo U. Quinterio for his 'unique' vision; the filmmaker blatantly copies the criss-crossing style of Nicolas Roeg's thriller "Don't Look Now" (also set in Venice), creating an indecipherable scenario wherein the editor was allowed to go berserk with the flash-forwards and flashbacks. The movie is so cluttered up with murky minutiae that it allows the straight-faced proceedings some camp value (how else to describe the cobbling together of Nazi atrocities and S&M imagery with sex scenes involving Grant nibbling on Welch's breasts--shown again under the closing credits!). Low-budget mess resembles those Golan-Globus pictures from the 1980s, and poor Grant seems at a complete loss for words. NO STARS from ****

The version I watched was called 'Train To Hell'. In fact it was going to Venice. That sums up this strange soup of a film. What was it about? There were elements of Phantom of the Opera, politics, memory loss, theatre, the supernatural, a romance; all mixed together in an unsatisfying brew. The romance was particularly unbelievable. It clumsily lurched from one scene to another. What was it about? Hugh Grant was on automatic (but then I've always thought him a one trick pony), Tahnee Welch inadequate even in such an unchallenging role and poor Malcolm McDowell couldn't make much out of his role. He just kept trying to look enigmatic and evil, oddly in slow motion most of the time. His character was mysterious to no purpose and had no name except 'The Stranger'! A lot of the film was set on a train and the director kept cutting to exterior shots of the train travelling through the landscape, endlessly breaking up even short scenes for no apparent reason. What was that about? As to the ending, it was the most lame I've seen in years. What was that about? The best part in the film was the good photography, particularly of Venice. There were some gorgeous helicopter shots that made you almost weep at the beauty of the place. In the opening credits of the DVD I saw the last person mentioned was not the director as is most common but the producer. So Toni Hirtreiter, if you want to take the blame so be it. A strange but bad film.

I first saw 'train to hell' in France in 2004. It was in one of those 3-in-1 compilations - a sure sign of its poor quality. Its excellence, however, is belied by surely the most unrepresentatively titled film ever. Train to hell. No. train to Venice. Yes.I expected it to be a dark nightmarish train journey, culminating in some sort of death. However, the train appeared quite pleasant, apart from the odd camp German skinhead neo-Nazi stereotypes and Malcolm Macdowell, whose silence is enough to turn any milk sour with fear. Truly a spectacular start. It gets better.Martin Gemmel gets Amnesia, but his constant questions 'who am I? Who is Martin Gemmel?' should surely be replaced with 'What is this film? Is there a plot?' If he had asked these, I'm sure he would have never recovered. Just as you think, 55 minutes in, that the film is about to go somewhere, it ends. Malcom Macdowell, looking ominous, stares for five minutes, then Hugh Grant runs over to save a child from a high fall. Cut to some Venice Tourist Board shots of Venice by Helicopter, and Bam! the film ends. Just over an hour, containing at least 20 minutes of needless footage of Venice and trains, this film has everything a film should: gratuitous sex, violence, explosions, a high profile actor (Macdowell), a rising star (Grant), Nazis, Slow motion, psychoanalytical 'barn' shots.Everyone should watch this film. It is amazing.