No.226 : The Yards (2000)

 

The Yards at the IMDb

You may have thought that E.U. rules would have demanded that this film be renamed ‘The Metres’ but fear not - the yards referred to are train yards, rather than units of measurement.

The film opens with a young looking Markie Mark heading home to Queens from a stint in prison. He was actually 29 when this was made and is the same age as me so it must just be a good vintage.

His family has a party for him and he is collared by his parole officer who needs him to get a job. He meets with his uncle James Caan who suggests a two year apprenticeship so that he can get a proper job. Not fancying this Markie hooks up with his friend Jaoquin Phoenix who works for Caan and seems to have loads of cash. He also has Markie’s old flame Charlize heron as a girlfriend.

Jaoquin explains that he is a fixer who wins contracts for Caan’s train fitting business. Of course this is done by way of bribes and smashing up his opposition’s rolling stock. He takes Markie along on a job that sees the yard manager refuse to play ball which results in Jaoquin stabbing him to death. Meanwhile altered by the alarm pressed by the yard manager a cop confronts Markie about his presence in the yard after dark. After a scuffle the cop is in a coma and sharp focus is drawn on the antics of Cann’s outfit and in the train tendering process in general.

Things deteriorate for Markie after he chickens out of finishing off the now conscious cop in his hospital bed, and gets fingered for the beating as well. Caan and the crew wash their hands of him and soon he is a marked man, especially after Jaoquin pins the murder on him too, after he learns that Charlize may like the Funky Bunch front man more than him.

With a large corruption investigation underway can Markie escape taking the blame and will the widespread corruption help to save his ass?

This was a decent offering but at the end it felt a bit slight and insubstantial. The story would have worked better as a mini series, as the sequence of events seemed hurried and unlikely. Markie basically goes for a job and on the first night is on the run for murder - maybe bed him in a bit and show us how things usually operate?

The settings and characters were familiar with the gritty realism of ‘Gone Baby Gone’ and ‘The Drop’ plain to see. It could have done with a Casey Affleck or similar in one of the leads as Markie and Jaoquin both looked like they were playing dress up. The larger cast was better despite James Caan’s poor moustache and Fay Dunaway’s poor fainting.

I’m not sure if this was a morality tale or just a slice of life but I wasn’t buying it. Markie seemed a bit of a scumbag and his resistance to a straight job left him being unsympathetic when circumstances went against him.

The big finale seemed a bit daft and I’m sure the police wouldn’t let a murder suspect out of their sight never mind let him weasel his way out of a air tight collar. I guess the message was that corruption goes to all levels, but it made for an unsatisfying conclusion that mirrored the rest of the film.

THE Tag Line - One Train You Can Miss 60%

No. 135 : The Commuter (2018)

The Commuter at the IMDb

Liam Neeson takes time off from his busy schedule of looking for black people to beat up to make this routine, but decent thriller. If you have seen his ‘Die Hard on a plane’ thriller ’Non Stop’ you’ve pretty much seen this, as it is the same script with ‘plane’ cleverly changed to ‘train’.

Neeson plays the titular commuter and the opening credits show him making the same commute into New York through all weathers in a variety of jackets. Neeson does stretch himself with the part however, with his character being an Irish man who lives in America. He has range, you have to give him that.

He lives with his wife and teenage son and his quirk is that he reads old books to help his offspring with his schoolwork. This leads to him showing the odd bit of literary insight and something to talk about with fellow commuter, Mike out of ‘Breaking Bad’. It’s a shame Mike didn’t have a bigger part but seemingly he had a bus to catch.

The action all takes place over one day and on one train ride, so if you are looking for car chases and sex scenes this is not the film for you. Before he boards the fateful train we see Neeson sell insurance to a young couple and he reveals he lost everything in the credit crunch. He has only five years until retirement (must have had a tough paper round) and should have enough money to squeeze by if everything goes OK. Almost immediately he is pulled into the manager’s office and given the boot as he costs more than he brings in. Nice to see there’s none of that HR nonsense about giving people a warning and due process etc.

He heads to the pub where he meets former police partner Patrick Wilson and police chief Sam Neill. Wilson comes across nice and Neill a dick. Bet those positions are set in stone! After stiffing Wilson with the bar bill he heads home. Surely his day can’t get any worse? Of course it does, but first the lovely Vera Farmiga shows up and starts chatting to Neeson. He thinks she’s trying to chat him up but in reality she’s offering him $100k for finding a bag, as you do.

Cash strapped Neeson smells a rat but pockets the £25k deposit and starts looking for the elusive bag holder. We then get a long period were we meet the various commuters such as douche bag Wall Street broker Clem Fandango and a weasely ticket inspector who was at least a bit of fun.

Slowly the number of suspects reduces as Neeson gets involved in a few fist fights and rampant vandalism - it was just like the last train to Paisley Canal! As the train approaches its final destination, and with Neeson’s family held hostage, will he get the bag and free his loved ones? Will the rail company refund his ticket due to excessive delays and will the police’s geriatric recruitment programme save the day?

This was a decent effort in the ‘We’ve got a few stars with 10 minute gaps in their diaries - let’s churn out something quick’ genre. Neeson paints by numbers in his portrayal of a man let down by the system trying to save his family. At no point to you have any sympathy for his situation as you wait for the next choreographed punch up. You have more sympathy for the fellow commuters who have a beer soaked Irish man shouting ‘What’s in your bag’ at them with annoying regularity.

Farmiga has about five minutes on screen and Wilson and Neill much the same. The supporting cast do OK with thinly written parts and it was fun to see Clem Fandango say something other that ‘Steven, can you hear me?’

The overall premise was ridiculous. The hunted bag belonged to a witness and the baddies wanted it back before it was delivered to the cops. Fair enough, but with their resources and eyes on everything overview you’d have thought relying on a troubled commuter would be the worst plan possible. Clearly they weren’t shy about some blood letting so why not just blow up the train rather than hope that Neeson will deliver?

The film ramps up in the last 20 minutes with a pretty decent crash that many CGI pixels gave their lives for, followed by a siege that wasn’t as tense as the director was hoping for. There was a funny take on ‘I’m Spartacus’ and then an after the fact sequence where we catch up with Neeson which although somewhat pat, at least it gave us some closure.

If you went into town on a train to see ‘The Commuter’ at the cinema you would have regretted paying for the off peak travel but as a find on Amazon Prime it was a decent offering that stayed on the rails for the most part.

THE Tag Line : Worst Train Ride Since Jimmy Savile
Rating : 64%