Someone has hi-jacked a London commuter train and six passengers left aboard are forced to figure out a way to either stop or get off said train. Given the six passengers, I’m not sure where the title Last Passenger comes from, but more importantly, the fact this film doesn’t even care who the driver of the train is or what exactly their motivations are actually works in its favor. These kind of films can often get bogged down in the whos and whys, forgetting that much of the time spent debating the villain’s reasons ignores the fact the characters are in a heap-load of trouble.
Directed and co-written by first time feature director Omid Nooshin, Last Passenger is a one-location thriller with the majority of the focus on Dr. Lewis Shaler (Dougray Scott), a single father traveling with his son (Joshua Kaynama). But before he realizes trouble is afoot, he’s making googly eyes at a pretty female passenger (Kara Tointon) who isn’t above sneaking a smooch after knowing Lewis for a good 45 minutes. Don’t judge her! Life is short, gotta move quickly when you see something you want.
However, after Lewis sees a man crawling on the tracks, following a brief stop in the middle of nowhere, and he watches as the train speeds by what was supposed to be his stop, it becomes painfully obvious something is wrong. A lot of frustration and wandering from one car to the next follows as Lewis must deal with Jan (Iddo Goldberg), a knuckle-headed Polish man wearing an orange safety jacket; a sweet grandmother (Lindsay Duncan); and Peter, an incredibly irritable and annoying businessman played by David Schofield.
There are the obvious moments where we’re meant to wonder if just maybe one of these passengers has something to do with what’s going on. Like, why is blondie so interested in Lewis? Why is this businessman such an incompetent ass hole? And what about Jan and that orange safety jacket? Lewis saw someone wearing one of those when the train stopped and Jan was causing some trouble at the start of the film. Hmmmmmm, coincidence? Hmmmm? Yeah? Maybe? No? Okay…
It’s only natural for a film to try and deceive the audience a little bit, but the way Nooshin has the actors playing each role is a bit curious. Even after we see Jan nearly kill himself in an attempt to save the train, he’s still giving the raised eyebrow as if he is still a character under suspicion. And Peter, the businessman, what is wrong with this guy? At one point he damn near loses his mind in an attempt to unhook the rail cars and given the tool he was using I have no idea what he was attempting to do.
Production values are a little suspect as you can tell they shot most of this on a stage, but outside of the cars bouncing around as if they are on massive springs, it works for the most part and the finale has a pretty great burst of special effects.
You’re likely to wonder why no one from the outside world is attempting to stop this train other than one brief moment where police are seen prior to the end of the film, all this despite the fact a call is placed from the train warning the authorities of what’s going on. But this seems more a problem with the way time is used within the film.
A series of napping characters pushes the narrative along until only six people are left on the train, but all the while we’re made to remember how Lewis said he needed to be at the hospital in 47 minutes. I can both applaud Nooshin and scold him slightly as it seems he attempted to make a ticking clock film, presenting the third act in almost real time without actually displaying the ticking clock. Too small a budget, resulting in too much editing makes doing so a very hard task. Had he used longer shots, less editing and perhaps cut out the grandmother altogether, he might have been able to keep the camera still long enough for us to remember just how much thinking these characters are having to do on their feet in a short span of time.
Overall, we’re looking at a solid debut, but not one that needed a big theatrical marketing push where it wasn’t going to make a dime. This isn’t Tony Scott directing Denzel Washington and Chris Pine, it’s a smaller film and if you find it On Demand or on Netflix give it a look, you could definitely do much worse.
