Narrow Margin

9/21/19901h 37m

Theatrical Release (US)

~ It will take you to the edge of suspense. ~

Overview:

An L.A. District Attorney attempts to take an unwilling murder witness back to the United States to testify against a top-level mob boss. Frantically attempting to escape two deadly hitmen sent to silence her, they board a Vancouver-bound train only to discover that the killers are onboard with them. For the next 20 hours, as the train hurls through the beautiful but isolated Canadian wilderness, a deadly game of cat and mouse ensues in which their ability to tell friend from foe is a matter of life and death.

Director:

Peter Hyams

Status:

Released

Language:

English

Buget:

$17,500,000.00

Revenue:

$10,900,000.00

Key words:

witness protection
night train
jump from train

Cast

Gene Hackman

~ as ~

Robert Caulfield

Anne Archer

~ as ~

Carol Hunnicut

James B. Sikking

~ as ~

Nelson

Harris Yulin

~ as ~

Leo Watts

J. T. Walsh

~ as ~

Michael Tarlow

M. Emmet Walsh

~ as ~

Sergeant Dominick Benti

Susan Hogan

~ as ~

Kathryn Weller

Nigel Bennett

~ as ~

Jack Wootton

J.A. Preston

~ as ~

Martin Larner

B.A. 'Smitty' Smith

~ as ~

Keller

View full cast & crew

Reviews (1)

John Chard
Written 10 year(s) ago
6.5
Narrow Margins and Wide Loads.

Director and writer Peter Hyams took the bold decision to reimage one of the best film noir crime pictures of the 1950s, and all things considered it’s not half bad. Without getting close to the greatness of Richard Fleischer’s 1952 claustrophobic suspenser that is.

Having Gene Hackman and Anne Archer heading up your two principal characters is a good foundation. As the district attorney employee and witness to a mob killing respectively, both actors come up trumps for their director as they are thrust into a game of cat and mouse aboard a speeding train. As the Canadian wilderness outside the train’s windows soothes the eyes, the cramped interiors make for good suspense as Hackman plays the calm to Archer’s panic.

There’s nothing new here in terms of thriller conventions, and the pitfalls and familiarity of the plot’s ideas keep it from hitting better heights: people still do dumb things – important details are all too quickly swept aside – laws of gravity non existent and etc. But refreshingly Hyams resists the chance to insert a cloying romance, while his staging of suspense scenes are very well handled. But of course he’s got Hackman being as cool as a cucumber. 6.5/10