Men in ill-fitting suits, their morning breath masked by coffee and toothpaste, women fitted in trainers providing a temporary respite from the discomfort of their work heels, the scruffy kids on their way to school for lessons in how not to do adulting, the ravers on their way home withdrawing from a night on ecstasy laced with rat poison, and workmen in their steel-capped boots — this is just a snippet of what you may encounter on a morning commute.
As author Erol Ozan once said, you’ll never truly understand a city until you use its transportation system; from the rat-ridden subways of New York and the charming tiled walls of the Parisian metro, to the deep-leveled heat of the London Underground, they all have their distinguishable characteristics. Public transport is a storyteller’s dream, what with the peculiar people that inhabit the buses and trains, and the aromas that permeate the warm air. There is a story to be told about every sensation, every journey, and every person, and as such, some great movies have been set on public transport, and here are some of the best…
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
5 Bullet Train
Columbia Pictures
The coming-out party for David Leitch’s Bullet Train has perhaps been more of a frolic than a party, at least in the eyes of a large faction of film critics who’ve given it a tepid reception. Yet, amongst the casual filmgoer, Bullet Train appears to have been well-received, and indisputably from a surface-level perspective, Bullet Train really packs a vivacious punch (or samurai sword slice, depending on character selection).
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
This is the tale of Ladybug (Brad Pitt), the hitman and rent-a-criminal who is recruited by a mysterious Maria Beetle (Sandra Bullock) to fetch a briefcase presumably full of cash; sound simple? Not for the foolhardy. It emerges that the train is a haven for fellow, worldly assassins who, like Ladybug, are on there with different instructions and agendas and, it soon materializes that the train journey is a sure-fire, one-way ticket to an inevitable demise. Pitt, with all of his experience and mastery of roles such as these, seems to glue the entire operation together, alongside exceptional performances from Aaron Taylor Johnson and Brian Tyree Henry who bring the laughs.
4 Planes, Trains, and Automobiles
Paramount Pictures
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles is a film that’s rightly ingrained in comedic folklore as one of the shining lights of the 1980s. With Steve Martin starring alongside John Candy, it is no coincidence that John Hughes’ film is a true stroke of comic genius. An uptight businessman, Neal Page (Martin), is in a rush to make it back for a Thanksgiving family dinner. Along the way, he encounters the irritating, larger-than-life shower curtain rings salesman Del Griffith (an incredible John Candy) who, through a series of fateful events, ends up helping his travel companion attempt to make it home in time.
3 The Darjeeling Limited
Fox Searchlight Pictures
Wes Anderson’s 2007 adventure flick The Darjeeling Limited, named after the train in which the movie is set, is a typical representation of Anderson’s style in all its quirky and symmetrical glory. Starring some of the director’s regular collaborators in Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, Anjelica Huston and Jason Schwartzman (and a very brief Bill Murray, of course), the film follows the story of three partially estranged brothers embarking on a spiritual pilgrimage through the vast Indian countryside to locate their mother following the death of their father.
As is often the case with Anderson’s screenplays, the intricacy of his movie’s comedy can be found in the subtle gift of the script’s repartee. The meticulous attention to detail in the color palette can be seen across all the Life Aquatic director’s movies, and The Darjeeling Limited is no different, with splodges of Indian colors and vibrant but rustic temples, and the style of this waning imperial grandeur adds to his radiant aesthetic.
2 Murder on the Orient Express
Anglo-EMI Film Distributors
Somewhat unsurprisingly, this is the 1974 original, and not Kenneth Branagh’s frankly underdeveloped, seemingly grandiose but really anemic 2017 remake of Murder on the Orient Express. Director, Sidney Lumet gifts the audience an installment of everyone’s favorite Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot (Albert Finney in this instance) in his screen adaptation of Agatha Christie’s novel Murder on the Orient Express.
After a gruesome murder occurs in Yugoslavia, Poirot, coincidentally a passenger on the train, is instructed to undertake the investigation into the killing, stopping at nothing to discover the culprit in a true classic of the crime drama whodunit genre. Albert Finney’s performance as Poirot captures the protagonist’s susceptibility to obsessive-compulsive disorder, with his immaculate appearance and analytical eye, and the fact that he brings this over-eccentric comic touch to the role is an added bonus to an all-round brilliant film.
1 Speed
20th Century Fox
When an indignant, highly skilled former cop threatens to blow up a lift’s emergency brakes happening to contain several people, Jack Traven (Keanu Reeves) and his partner Harry (Jeff Daniels) are called in to negotiate with the disgruntled ex-policeman. After a failed attempt, Howard (Dennis Hopper) goes to extreme lengths to reap havoc by planting a bomb on a local bus (ridden by a great Sandra Bullock), threatening to detonate it if his demands are failed to be met once again. Speed is a taut affair, an unpredictable frenzy, with palpably high stakes. Dennis Hopper puts in a stellar display as the disturbed and resentful Howard Payne. Approaching its 30th birthday, Speed remains just as absorbingly tense and fun as it was in 1993.
