At first, Miles wants nothing to do with the treasure, because he knows that someone is always waiting for something worth millions, and when it doesn't show up, they'll come looking for it. Still, the box calls to him, and eventually he finds himself back in the rear car, the three of them trying to figure out what to do with the body. Their plan, however, is the first sign of trouble: there's an upcoming river they could drop the corpse into, but they want it to sink, so they decide to stuff the guy in an empty trunk. The trunks are in the baggage car, so the trio decides to sneak the body from the rear car all the way up to the baggage car, past all the other people on the train. Why wouldn't you get a bag from the baggage car and bring it back to the body? It doesn't make any sense.

Once back there, things get worse in a hurry. In a smarter movie, everyone's motives would pull in the wrong direction, as if the three of them were tied together, but Night Train instead opts to give us a crazy person among the trio, who spends the rest of the movie being a plot device whenever the story needs to shift. In the interest of keeping the review spoiler-free, I won't say who it is, but I doubt anyone watching the film will be surprised. Rest assured that they exhibit all the worst traits of Crazy Persons in thrillers: they make increasingly irrational decisions as the situation escalates, they eventually start to try to take out not only the other two co-conspirators, but everyone who gets inadvertently involved, and despite even getting shot in the face during the third act, they refuse to die. The movie also helps Crazy Person using movie magic; their attempt to kill another character doesn't seem like it would work (maybe with thicker tape), and another murder leaves behind an inordinately small amount of blood.

Surrounding our main characters are the few other passengers. Two Asian men sit and play "Go" (the game with white and black pieces on a square grid, also seen in A Beautiful Mind), an old lady and her dog wander around (I'd like to meet someone who can't figure something out about her within the first two minutes she's on screen), and the train's assistant conductor Frankie (Matthias Schweighoefer) gets increasingly suspicious of Miles. Detective Melville (Geoff Bell) and a mysterious man named Mr. Gutman (Constantine Gregory) also board the train. Of the lot of them, only Frankie is particularly interesting. He has good scenes with Miles, and his character doesn't make any ridiculously stupid decisions either.

Sadly, Brian King isn't a better director than he is a writer, as far as I can tell, although the budget may have been to blame. Most of the exterior shots of the train are really, really horrible, PlayStation-era graphics that someone was clearly hoping wouldn't be noticeable because of how dark and snowy it is. Inside the train, things are fuzzy and sparse-looking. More than anything, though, King just doesn't do anything interesting. It's all very basic, and it's also all very boring.

I like Danny Glover. He just seems like a nice guy, which is a good starting point for most of the characters he's played over the years, and from there, he gets out all the emotion he needs through his weary eyes and distinctive voice. Glover is exactly the kind of character actor you'd want in a movie like this, and he does what he can with what he's given. In general, he seems to react to what the other characters and actors are doing, which makes him look better than anyone else in the movie. Steve Zahn is an actor I can take or leave; he has the capacity to be very good in a movie, but Night Train, through no fault of his own, is not one of his better efforts. As for Leelee Sobieski, there's still something I like about her (I don't see why she couldn't do at least some of the roles that Scarlett Johansson does) and she's also still gorgeous, but her involvement in movies has turned into a red flag (The Wicker Man? 88 Minutes? In the Name of the King?), and Night Train is no different. Too bad Zahn and Sobieski couldn't have charmed up some Joy Ride-style thrills together.

Night Train is the most frustrating kind of disappointing film: one that could have been better. The movie has a handful of good actors and an interesting enough premise to be a nice little movie if it tried a little harder, but the script fuels the engine instead of the characters. There are those two Asian passengers playing Go, and they're like a metaphor for the whole movie. The Wikipedia entry for Go notes how much random chance there is in the game: "Virtually none." I kind of think that depends on the person you're playing against and how seriously they're taking it. I imagine they could make nonsensical, stupid decisions, and it would become increasingly harder to figure out what they're going to do next, and it would introduce a little random chance. On the other hand, who wants to play against someone who isn't interested in strategy but only with shocking his opponent? That's not fun for anybody.

The DVD
Night Train comes in a standard case with cover art that is not necessarily dynamic or creative, but appealingly slick-looking, with a good color scheme and uncluttered design. The back cover is not quite as nice-looking, but it still looks alright; neither side betrays how low-budget the movie actually is. The disc has a horrid image of the CG train (and a CG police car), the menus are as nicely done as the cover, and there is no insert.

The Video
For some reason, the entire movie seems to have been shot in some sort of soft focus mode. It gives everything the slightly hazy look I'd normally expect in a dream sequence. I guess it was probably done to make things look a little nicer, but it doesn't really help. Instead, this 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer just looks fuzzy and soft, and since the softness is so slight, there are occasional artifact issues in the transition from focus to out of focus. Other than the softness, the image is problem-free, and the look is clearly intentional, but regardless, this transfer just looks cheap.

The Audio
The packaging claims the sound is English 5.1 Dolby Digital, but I can't recall hearing a single instance of surround effects during the entire film, despite lots of atmospheric chances for it, like the rumble of the train on the tracks and snowy winds whipping by. If I hadn't selected 5.1 with my remote, I might have thought I'd have listened to the Dolby 2.0 track that's also included instead. The track is otherwise clear and easy to understand, but prepared to be let down. English captions for the deaf and hard of hearing and Spanish subtitles are included.

The Extras
For some reason, the extras are arranged kinda backwards. Whatever. We start off with Night Train's original trailer (2:11) and continue with a 29-still photo gallery (2:12).

"The Making of Night Train" (22:50) is a middle-of-the-road featurette. It's not the worst making-of piece I've seen, and the talking head pieces aren't too praise-happy (the cast even seems genuinely interested, especially Glover), but it's hard to hear Brian King claim Night Train was inspired by The Maltese Falcon and remain interested. If you like them, however, there's a whole gallery of additional interviews (28:13) to close things out. These two bonuses, like the feature, are subtitled in English and Spanish.

Conclusion
Despite a strong cast and an interesting (if unoriginal) concept, writer/director Brian King would rather let plot devices and contrivances control the story than his talented actors and the characters he's written. Night Train is disappointing, and I don't see any reason not to skip it.