Runaway Train 4K 1985 Ultra HD 2160p

A story about two prisoners (John Voight and Eric Roberts) who escape from prison into the frozen wilderness of Alaska. The criminals jumped on the wrong train—the locomotive they chose to flee in loses its ability to brake and is therefore hurtling full speed toward a precipice. The prisoners have two options: either stop the train or engage in a showdown with the warden, who is hot on the fugitives’ trail.
 

User Review

Manny (Jon Voight), after serving three years in solitary confinement, returns to his cell. He’s a tough guy and commands great respect among the inmates, who love and idolize him, even nominating him for president. Due to a personal feud with the warden, his already difficult life becomes twice as hard. And after Manny learns that the warden wants to kill him, he has no choice but to escape.

By a twist of fate, taking the young and hot-headed inmate Buck (Eric Roberts) with him, he makes his escape and ends up on a runaway train moving at breakneck speed without a driver. This runaway locomotive, hurtling along without brakes, becomes a new prison for our fugitives—one from which escape will be far more difficult.

This film, previously unknown to me and based on a story by Akira Kurosawa, made a very favorable impression. Kurosawa, known for his refined and subtle screenplays, once again presents us with a rather intriguing and far from trivial plot. And although his original screenplay was reworked and altered—since the master himself was unable to direct the film—the core idea remained the same.

To show the relationships between people trapped in a confined space, teetering on the brink of destruction. At some point, as he turns into a beast, John Voight’s character realizes this and stops. Realizing that all these years he had been a loner who loved only himself, he ultimately decides to sacrifice his own life to save his wayward fellow fugitive and the girl who unexpectedly ended up on the train.

I’m not a particular fan of the remarkable actor John Voight’s talent, and I admit I haven’t seen most of his films, but in *Runaway Train* he revealed a completely different side of himself to me. The role of Manny, for which he prepared by interacting with real prisoners, turned out to be very powerful. After the scene on the train, when John threatened Eric Roberts’ character with a knife and stared at him with wild, furious eyes, it became genuinely unsettling—it all looked so believable.

In short, the famous Soviet director Andrei Konchalovsky, as usual, did a brilliant job and made a truly worthy film.

Info Video

Codec: HEVC / H.265 (97.6 Mb/s)
Resolution: Native 4K (2160p)
HDR: Dolby Vision, HDR10
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1

Info Audio

#English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
#English: FLAC 2.0
#English: Dolby Digital 2.0 (Commentary by Co-Star Eric Roberts with Film Historians David Del Valle and C. Courtney Joyner)

Info Subtitles