Strictly average movie

Best movie ever!

I saw this movie before reading any reviews, and I thought it was very funny. I was very surprised to see the overwhelmingly negative reviews this film received from critics.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

So here's the story. Within the first 10 minutes of the picture, the train's engineer learns that he has no brakes AND they're going downhill through the mountains. Now you'd THINK this would mean the movie would be at most 15-20 minutes long...yet somehow they pad it out to full length for a made for TV film! So what do they do? Pad, pad and pad!You have to understand the context for this picture. The 1970s were HUGE for disaster pictures and this is one of about 19,000,000 such films that were made about impending doom during that time. Earthquakes, floods, fires, boats, airplanes, you name it...and so why NOT make a film about a train full of passengers waiting to die?! Well, common sense would indicate they shouldn't but it was the rage at the time.Ways they padded some films was make a few characters with some silly backstory...and the one they invested the most energy on was the divorcing couple who hate each other and you KNOW what is going to happen with them by the end of the movie!! Overall, a dumb premise and a film I can't see watching unless you are some sort of disaster movie groupie.

I saw this movie when it first aired, 33 years ago. Eek! But still it sticks in my mind. I hated the GRAND HOTEL or, if you prefer, TOWERING INFERNO trope of having various folks in various personal crises (the disaffected long-married couple & al.; now that I think of it, GRAND HOTEL may be the only movie of this type I think ever worked, SHIP OF FOOLS included), but the runaway-train problem itself, and how it's solved, still sticks in my mind.I know it's probably no better than a time-wasting movie, but the ending is a glorious, happy surprise. And Ben Johnson does his patented underacting to bring a smooth, calm centre to what would otherwise be a hysterical disaster movie.I was pleased to note (thanks, IMDb!) that the screenwriter for this non-epic also wrote one of my favourite recent movies, THE FORGOTTEN.

I'm an avid railroad fan, and for all of its inadequacies, I feel that this movie still rates as excellent. I first saw this as a child, and have been searching for it for over fifteen years. I was lucky enough to find someone on Ebay that has a 35mm copy of it and does sell videos of it, so for all the true fans of this movie, check out Ebay.As for the technical end of it, the plot is probably something that could not happen, at least in the magnitude depicted here. ALL diesel locomotives have something called a TRACTION BRAKE, which, like the reversal of an airliners engines to slow an aircraft, does essentially the same thing. The traction brake reverses electrical polarity to the motors, causing them to act AGAINST forward motion. This is comparable to downshifting an automobile transmission into first or low gear when descending steep hills. By itself, the traction brake could not have stopped the train, but the locomotive could have slowed the train down to a less than fatal speed. Also, a helper locomotive added to the rear of a train would probably not have the power to stop a train travelling 70+ mph by itself. It would need the assistance of the air brake throughout the train to accomplish that - which was useless in the movie plot, and even if it weren't, there's no way the air hoses could be connected on a moving train.Despite these flaws, the movie is very entertaining, and at 70 minutes, it is like a sweet and satisfying snack, compared to a 120 minute main course.

Ah yes disaster movies a favourite film genre of the 1970s when megastars and prestigious character actors would all slum together on a film featuring lots of exciting and spectacular deaths . RUNAWAY is a disaster movie ( Well TVM ) from the 1970s but suffers from three major flaws :1 ) There`s no megastars 2 ) With the exception of Ben Johnson there`s no prestigious character actors 3 ) There`s very little in the way of spectacular or exciting deaths In many ways RUNAWAY is like THE CASSANDRA CROSSING without the megastars , prestigious character actors or shootouts . Oh well it could have been worse - It could have lasted a lot longer than 70 minutes