Not a remake of the landmark 1903 Edwin S. Porter film, The Great Train Robbery is a dramatization of the famous first hold-up of a moving train in 1855 England. The conspirators in this undertaking are Edward Pierce (Sean Connery), Agar (Donald Sutherland) and Clean Willy (Wayne Sleep). Pierce is the brains, Clean Willy the brawn, and safecracker Agar provides the finesse. The scheme involves stealing a shipment of gold bars intended to be used in the payroll for the Army in the Crimean War.
Lesley Anne Down co-stars as Miriam, the woman on the outside who arranges Connery's getaway. When released in England, this film was titled The First Great Train Robbery, so as not to be confused with Britain's embarrassing 1963 railroad heist. Director Michael Crichton adapted the story from his own, more-clinical novel on the same subject. Filmed in Ireland, The Great Train Robbery was dedicated to the memory of its director of photography, Geoffrey Unsworth, who died shortly after the production wrapped. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
he climactic heist of the gold, with Mr. Connery climbing atop the moving railroad cars, ducking under bridges just before a possible decapitation, is marvelous action footage that manages to be very funny as it takes your breath away.
Crichton is after a giggly quality as if it's being told as a pub yarn, soaked in exaggeration and acute trickery to defeat impossible hurdles, while never far from redoubtable moral lesson.
The characters stay largely undeveloped, while -- despite superficially peculiar features -- the robbery is stripped of the ingenious exposition of the novel.
Excellent period film featuring great performances by Connery and Sutherland. Crichton's direction builds some very tense moments, particularly in the execution of the robbery, but the movie isn't too serious to throw in an occasional gag. Deserves to be
Not the most intriguiging of robbery/hiest movies, but clever all the same. It plodded along slowly but at an entertaining pace, interesting to see a robbery/hiest for it's the period it covered and with a little humour injected in to it and a likeable performance by Sean Connery, it all turned into a watchable kind
of film.
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