A heart-warming little romance, with spot-on casting and great acting to paper over the cracks in the story line. Hurt plays the 'man of mystery' to perfection: "up to something strange in the attic".A well observed Dublin also plays a part, as the setting for all or most of the location shots.One quibble: has anyone ever built an extensive model railway in a rented room? That kind of hobby goes with a fixed abode! But no more implausible than John Hurt playing a romantic lead....But quibbles aside, Hurt & Blethyn are superb, as usual, and deliver a delightful and diverting entertainment. Simply enjoy!

Brenda Blethyn (52) and John Hurt (58) are the lovers in this late life romance. It is very much like a stage play and the story line is so fragile that you are required to champion the actors and disregard brief not too well done action sequences that move the story along.It is low budget but the filming is very competent. I found it a little hard to believe that a middle class (at best) middle aged introverted woman (Blethyn) could suddenly appear decked out like Lauren Bacall in the train sequences--where did she get the expensive clothes etc...ditto for John Hurt who had been working in a slaughter house disposing of offal--although his career had actually been as a rip off shady bookkeeper-- still not the evening clothes type.The model train stuff was hard to swallow but central to the story--what can I say all in all it works as enjoyable entertainment what more do you want? The narrow focus of the action (to the romance and elopement) helps make it low key and relaxing even though there are scenes of people being burned alive etc... ODD movie in this regard.Tacked on items like the women's lingerie thief reveal the fundamental naive amateur nature of the writing/production. But that's what gives this B production it's appeal.RECOMMEND

Delighted to find this has been picked up by Lifetime Movies and will get the exposure it deserves. Sensitive performances and well-photographed travellogue plus an odd subplot make this a winner. Blethyn in particular is her usual talented self and somehow we even begin to see John Hurt as handsome thru her eyes--no small feat!

At the end of the nineteenth century, whenever a filmmaker wanted to convey a sense of urgency and romance, he took his camera, placed it on a railway platform and waited for the sound of a steam whistle. The 1898 movie shorts, ‘Arrival Of Tokyo Train' and ‘Train Hour in Durango, Mexico' do not have modern equivalents. The fact is we prefer not to have drama in our airports. We don't want smoke billowing from our 747's, and we would feel decidedly uncomfortable if every flight were presaged by a man in a navy uniform looking to his pocket watch before announcing, "all aboard now, ladies and gentlemen".John Lynch, in his engaging feature ‘Night Train', finds passion in his performers rather than in the iron behemoth of the title. The urgency and romance are delivered by John Hurt and Brenda Blethyn, both powerful actors who understand that the full force of love can be projected more with the unsaid and ineffable than with the spoken word.The romance begins when Michael Poole (Hurt) introduces Alice Mooney (Blethyn) to his secret obsession, the elaborate train set which he has been constructing in his room. Poole, recently released from jail for embezzlement, is now being pursued by the gangster (Lorcan Cranitch) he swindled. So, this sheltered world of miniature tracks and sidings must soon be exchanged for the real thing as our protagonists set off on the Orient Express for Venice.‘Night Train' is always much more than a chase movie because it explores an area not often charted in recent films. Love is not the sole property of supple young boys and girls whose close-ups invariably involve open pores and beads of perspiration. Sometimes love is simply about forgotten desires and about hope and, to quote the writer John Rechy, sometimes hope is an end in itself.Night train is a film that reminds us of our frailties.