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Critics Consensus: Mystery Train meanders by design, but it never goes off the rails, retaining its deadpan cool throughout.
Critic Consensus: Mystery Train meanders by design, but it never goes off the rails, retaining its deadpan cool throughout.
All Critics (32) | Top Critics (6) | Fresh (28) | Rotten (4) | DVD (6)
The three-part structure of Mystery Train is still a bit shambling and slight, but there's an undeniable air of deadpan cool that permeates the film and gives it a haunting sense of place.
Happily, Jarmusch's formal inventiveness is framed by a rare flair for zany entertainment ...
It's the best thing Mr. Jarmusch has done to date.
Certainly Jarmusch brings back his favorite predilections (and probably always will), but he makes his passengers interesting, kicks the plot off the platform whenever possible and keeps the way ahead refreshingly uncertain.
If there is a rationale for what takes place on-screen, it's not evident. Things happen, and nothing means anything.
The best thing about "Mystery Train" is that it takes you to an America you feel you ought to be able to find for yourself, if you only knew where to look.
...has the same weird beauty as a Van Morrison vocal, a mannered eccentricity that somehow cracks open and lays bear the stuttering, fervid heart of what could have been banal material.
... his unhurried rhythms give the deadpan mix of quirky Americana, pop culture, and cinematic poetry a quietly lived-in quality...
Jarmuschs films are usually about the gradual accretion of small details than the articulation of a conventional narrative.
(O)nce it plants itself within, it remains a vivid cultural memory.
Jarmusch finds visual poetry in the run-down, the ignored, and the decrepit, especially via the use of neon colors cutting into the darkness and the gray
The humor is here. It's so deadpan that it sneaks up on you.
Another classic from Jarmusch with the backdrop of Memphis and featuring great performances especially from Mr. Screamin' Jay Hawkins.
Super Reviewer
A simple tale, told in three parts, of three groups of people who converge on the same flea-bag hotel in Memphis. The characters are eccentric, and the three tales are held together by one comically executed event in the early morning hours. This film is worth it just to see Screamin' Jay Hawkins as the desk clerk at the hotel, but there are other musicians who make appearances as well in this homage to the Memphis music scene. Even a young Steve Buscemi makes an appearance here. The humorous moments are subtle, and the story is told with a certain amount of pathos that steadily draws the viewer in until we actually care what happens to these people. Okay, maybe not for the clowns in the third segment, but for most of them, anyway. A lot of the area where this was filmed has changed since then, so this can be seen as preserving a bit of the history of Memphis as well. One of Jim Jarmusch's early efforts, it is a well crafted film and one this viewer enjoyed.
Mystery Train was capable of much better. It's divided into thirds; the first portion is the best, far and away. The Japanese couple are the richest characters, have the best dialogue, and experience the most interesting situations. The second portion is uninvolving, with a couple of gleaming moments to be taken from the chaff. The third is just dumb. The fact that these three stories overlap time is a purposeless gimmick - something to tie these incongruous tales together. Ideally, you'd do best just watching the first forty minutes and shutting the movie off.
Has its moments, but not the best movie ever made.
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