With good production values and a load of suspense, Atomic Train delivers the goods--ahead of schedule. A rich bureaucrat with a Porsche, a goatee, and a defective sense of morality places a defective Russian nuclear warhead aboard a defective American train for cheap disposal, but the engine loses its brakes and hurls out of control toward Denver. Will it explode? Will it wipe out half the city? Will the thoughts and prayers of the President--played by Edward Herrmann, in his best Chrysler-salesman mode--do any good? Will Rob Lowe, the major hero of this epic, ever be able to save his career? Atomic Train hauls along every disaster-flick formula you can think of: an estranged couple bonding again during a time of crisis (you begin to miss the hysterical Harvey Fierstein character of Independence Day); urban rioting and mayhem; government officials wearing headsets and breathlessly watching video monitors; trigger-happy military men; high-speed stunts; escapes by helicopter; clean-up crews in white spacesuits; many scenes of families being reunited after subplot cliffhangers, to major-key crescendos on the soundtrack. The only typical element missing is a dog saved from a fire at the last minute. But, you have to admit, what Atomic Train does it does with pizzazz.
Everyone's a hero in this movie and almost everyone faces great danger, including Esai Morales, an estranged husband and father; Kristin Davis, the ex-wife with child he's competing with Lowe for; and Zack Ward, the assistant train engineer. It's interesting to see what Ward looks like and what he's doing so many years after playing the yellow-eyed bully in A Christmas Story (hint: a strikingly handsome decent actor). That's one of the many guilty pleasures of this film, with its post-Armageddon tone of overly heroic but ultimately disposable machismo. And explosions. Lots of explosions. --Robert Burns Neveldine
