The Great Train Robbery Review

The Great Train Robbery 1978

Sean Connery tired of playing James Bond and struck out looking for greener pastures where he could be recognized as an actor. In this case he missed the boat, big time.

Train robberies are typically an American phenomenon like Jesse James and  cowboys on galloping horses chasing down a speeding locomotive. This is different, giving the train robbery an old English perspective, around 1855. 

Based on the book by Michael Crichton, who also directed the movie.

Sean Connery plays a cariciature of the master thief very much reminiscent of "Snidely Whiplash" from the "Dudley Dooright" cartoon, complete with handlebar mustache.

Connery decides to rob the payroll that is shipped by train to the soliders fighting in Crimea. The first leg of the long journey starts by train, in London ...

Using his gang of thieves (Lesley-Anne Down and Donald Sutherland) he observes the whole process and finds the key people who have control of the money. There is sort of an intricate plot and most of the running time follows either the learning how the transfer of the gold works, or doing the actual caper.

The story plays out in a fairly light hearted fashion however it soon begins to plod.  The one mildly thrilling scene towards the end has Connery runing along the roofs of the speeding train, ducking under several low bridges that seem to come at greater and greater frequency. By the time the movie finally gets to this scene, however, most viewers have ceased to care.

The Great Train Robbery  gets off to a slow start, mildly chugging along for most of the running time before the actual robbery gets going, towards the end of the 2-hour movie. This leaves the viewer, in effect, "standing on the platform" waiting for something (anything!) to develop.

Sean Connery does merely a fair job with his character although seeming pretentious, stiff, and full of himself is perhaps a good representation of a Victorian, but a little of this pomposity goes a long way and sucks a lot of the fun out of the caper, which can't seem to decide if it is a comic or serious take on the event. It thus fizzles like a wet fuse and the climax is not much of a bang.

Donald Sutherland plays a greasy urchin pickpocket who can pick locks and do various other feats useful to the criminal arts. His cockney accent is cartoonish and unconvincing. Quite a boring character and not memorable.

Lesley-Anne Down has a smaller part but uses her considerable sex appeal to further the plot, with alternate sensuality and hilarity. Her part actually would have helped the movie if she was given more time and the other two stars less. The supporting players are all British and most of the filming was done in Ireland.

The Great Train Robbery ultimately gets derailed by Michael Crichton's static direction, half hearted comedy that doesn't quite come off, and plodding action that never gets the viewer up onto the edge of his seat.

The MGM DVD runs 111 minutes and is presented in 1.85:1 theatrical aspect in color. Along with a well preserved copy of the film the DVD includes a full length commentary with author/director Michael Crichton.  Forget this one!