Runaway Train - 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray

It’s been a couple of years since I last reviewed Runaway Train and my feelings for the film haven’t diminished in the slightest. It’s not one I regularly pull off the shelf for a night’s entertainment, but when I do, it never disappoints. A unique entry in the muscle-stuffed Action genre of the 1980s, it focuses on character and story to build suspense and tension for a pulse-pounding payoff with great performances. If there’s nothing else to love about the flick, it gave us Danny Trejo! 

Since I’ve got nothing to change or add to my thoughts about the film, here’s what I wrote a couple of years ago: 

Manny (Jon Voight) has been in the hole for years after numerous escape attempts. Buck (Eric Roberts) idolizes Manny as the criminal mastermind he wants to become. When Warden Ranken (John P. Ryan) is forced to release Manny back to the general population, Manny takes his one last chance for freedom in a final escape with Buck in tow. The two convicts make their way onto a freight train - only the conductor had a heart attack locking the throttle at full speed. As Manny, Buck, and railway worker Sara (Rebecca De Mornay) desperately try to stop or slow down the train, Warden Ranken is trying to get on board. 

Watching Runaway Train brings up a lot of "what if's." What if Akira Kurosawa had been able to make this movie in the 60s and 70s as he planned? What if Cannon had a better reputation when this film came out, and it'd been a hit - would Superman IV be as bad as it is? Would we have actually gotten an 80s Spider-Man movie? If Eric Roberts won the Oscar, would he be more popular and successful than his sister today? There are a lot of factors that went into this film finally coming to life that almost boggle the mind. This is one of those films that literally could have been anything while also changing the course of one of the most notorious Hollywood studios of that era.

Director Andrey Konchalovskiy took Kurosawa's vision and turned it into a thinking man's action movie at a time when bullets and bulging muscles were the bread and butter for the genre. When you think of action, you don't immediately think of Jon Voight as a hardened criminal and social anti-hero. Voight delivers a powerful, if admittedly over-the-top, performance as Manny, a man who hates the world as much as he hates himself. Then you have Eric Roberts as Buck, a small-timer doing a few years who worships Manny as a hero but soon learns the man he idolizes is very different than the one he built up in his head.  

What's admirable about this film is that the action is always secondary to the characters. The unstoppable runaway train is simply symbolism for Manny and Buck's lives as escaped criminals. Buck wants to get off even if it causes him pain, but Manny is hellbent on seeing it to the end of the line. It may add tension and terror as they try to find a way to slow the train down or stop it - but their lives are already going to be runaway trains. 

This film didn't even need a train to be exciting; they could have been stuck in the Alaskan wilderness on those frozen glaciers with the prison warden on their tails, and it would have still been an excellent film. It's on that point I wish there'd been more exposition and the personal dynamic between Manny and Ranken. We get only a few moments before Manny is let out of the hole to set their powerplay. Once the train is out of control, Ranken is an afterthought for a long stretch of track as the control operators try everything they can to stop the locomotive.

Watching this film again, I was struck by how Tony Scott's Unstoppable knicked practically every major action beat from this film. Train crashing through another car - check. Attempted helicopter rescue - check. Trying to make the impossible jump to the next car - check. Dangerously unstable bridge with max speed limit - check. The only difference here is our leads are escaped prisoners instead of blue-collar railroad men and the villain is the prison warden instead of the corporate dickhead. Both films are great, they do a lot of the same things, but each film's approach is different enough thematically that they stand apart. 

By a wide margin, Runaway Train is the best in the Cannon catalog. That's not a high bar, mind you, but there you have it. After years of clunky Chuck Norris movies, Charles Bronson movies, propping up Bo Derek's career, and endless Ninja-themed movies - Cannon had a pretty rough reputation for schlock. And with Runaway Train, we have what amounts to an arthouse action movie with a budget by a competent director and a talented cast working beyond the desire of a cash-out paycheck. By this point, Cannon was already hip-deep in their bad practices of taking one film's intended budget, splitting it, and trying to fund another movie at the same time to hopefully recoup past losses. I've often wondered if Runaway Train had been a big audience hit and not just a Critic and Awards Darling, if the course of the studio would have changed for the better - or made things worse?

Vital Disc Stats: The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray 
Runaway Train jumps back onto the physical media tracks thanks to a new two-disc 4K UHD + Blu-ray release from Kino Lorber Studio Classics. The 4K is pressed on a BD100 disc with a BD50 serving up the 1080p and the bulk of the extras. The discs are housed in a two-disc black case with identical slipcover art. The discs load to a static image main menu with standard navigation options.

Runaway Train is one of those films where every time it gets a new home video release, it always looks a little different. From DVD to the Twilight Time Blu-ray to KLSC’s first Blu-ray, there have been a few tweaks to the color timing. That track follows here with this 1.85:1 2160p Dolby Vision transfer. Where I felt the Twilight Time disc could look a little too hot with reds pushed a little too strong for very pinked skin tones, the first KLSC Blu-ray dialed that back and pushed blues a little stronger. This color grading again skews colder; blues are a little steelier, but reds also have their playtime. I’d argue skin tones look a little more natural for a bunch of guys stuck in a prison located deep in a frozen wasteland. Jon Voight’s orange hoodie has never looked the same from one release to the next either; sometimes it’s Golden Gate Bridge orange, sometimes it’s a supermarket navel orange shade; here it’s somewhere in the middle. This color timing scheme isn't good or bad necessarily, just different from what we had before - which was different from what we had before that and so on. I think, for what it does, this latest grade is effective. 

Reportedly sourced from a new 4K Scan of the 35mm original camera negative (by whom or when is unknown), the image is sharp and clear with some strong, lifelike details. Similar to past releases, if a scene looked a little rough, like in the opening when Buck watches the TV, grain can be a bit noisy, a bit blocky, and black levels can be a bit stiff - but that’s always been a bit of a problem spot. Later, when they added optical effects for whipping winds and snow, those effects were again a little rough. Or when they undercrank the camera as our hapless passengers try to cut the frozen power line, that kind of optical trickery exposes a few anomalies that might distract if the movie itself wasn’t so exciting. Overall, I like what this new scan brings in for details, clarity, and image stability. The toughest stick to jump for some folks with this release will be that cooler, steelier color timing.

On the audio side, the same DTS-HD MA 2.0 track returns from past releases, and it remains an excellent mix. In fact, it’s still my preferred mix to watch the film, but, KLSC arms this release with a very good, very effective DTS-HD MA 5.1 track to consider. On the weight of things, the 5.1 isn’t that overly aggressive or different from the 2.0 track - it just spreads the elements in an effective way through the soundscape. The prison riot and the boxing match, the crowd sounds, and the chaos slip into those extra channels nicely. Likewise, the louder the train gets or the more destructive, the more active those surround channels become. What holds me back on this track a tad is that it feels the dialog is mixed a little lower while still being a fairly front/center channel-focused experience. Those surrounding channels aren’t always deployed, especially early on; they’re more incidental. It’s still a good listen, I think most viewers will enjoy it, but as it's the default option and still the best of the pair, I’ll keep to the 2.0. 

Where this release makes up a lot of ground is with the bonus features. The same solid audio commentary returns, but now we’re getting a run of new interviews to beef up the proceedings. The interviews are great material, especially Eric Roberts’ 20 minutes as he gets very detailed but animated and excited to talk about shooting the film and how various pieces of the production came together. Voight gets the most time of anyone, but he’s quite a bit more subdued as he tends to be in interviews about his career. Konchalovsky’s 16 minutes is another great stretch of detail and Kyle Heffner’s segment is also interesting as someone who came in with little lead time and practically had to jump into his role blind. It’s a good 100+ minutes of interesting interviews. 

4K UHD Disc

• Audio Commentary featuring Eric Roberts, David Del Valle, and C. Courtney Joyner

Blu-ray Disc

• Audio Commentary featuring Eric Roberts, David Del Valle, and C. Courtney Joyner
• The Moment is Red - Interview with Eric Roberts (HD 19:49)
• From Thespian to Fugitive: Jon Voight Remembers Runaway Train (HD 37:45)
• Running on Empty - Interview with Andrei Konchalovsky (HD 15:55)
• The Calm Before the Chos - Interview with Kyle T. Heffner  (HD 17:02)
• Sweet and Savage - 2013 Interview with Eric Roberts (HD 15:59)
• Theatrical Trailer 
• KLSC Trailer Gallery:
• Lady on a Train
• The Train
• One More Train to Rob
• Murder on the Orient Express
• The Taking of Pelham One Two Three
• Breakheart Pass
• The Great Train Robbery
• Narrow Margin
• Throw Momma from the Train

Runaway Train is just a damned good film. Plain and simple. But it’s also one of those mid-80s pictures that often gets forgotten for one reason or another. To some extent, I think it may be the Golan/Globus Cannon Group brand that upends the reputation. Which is a shame because Konchalovsky delivered a genuinely excellent, exciting film with great Oscar-nominated performances from Jon Voight and Eric Roberts.

Now, Runaway Train hits the physical media turnout full speed for its first 4K Dolby Vision release. Overall, I think it’s a solid visual upgrade, but I can see some fans taking issue with yet another color timing shift. On the audio side, we get two great options. I may prefer the 2.0, but the new 5.1 mix is a nice experience too. The biggest perk is the beefier pack of bonus features delivering the same excellent commentary while adding over 100 minutes of new and archival cast/director interviews. Ultimately, I’m calling this ride Recommended