The Midnight Meat Train

The Midnight Meat Train

Starring: Vinnie Jones, Bradley Cooper, Leslie Bibb, Brooke Shields, Ted Raimi

Directed by: Ryuhei Kitamura

Reviewed by: Conor Flynn







‘The Midnight Meat Train’ sees the return of acclaimed author Clive Barker to the producer’s chair. In the past he has produced a few excellent films, the most notable of which would be ‘Candyman’ and the terrific ‘Gods & Monsters’. Aiding him on this production is Japanese director Ryuhei Kitamura who closed the current chapter in the Godzilla series with the vapid ‘Godzilla: Final Wars’ and gave us the visually interesting but utterly vacuous ‘Versus’. Considering Barker has panache for great storytelling and Kitamura has an eye for stylish visuals, ‘The Midnight Meat Train’ sounds like a promising combination.

Based upon a short story from Barker’s acclaimed ‘Books of Blood’ series, the film tells the story of Leon (Cooper), a photographer who rescues a woman from a street gang inside an underground subway station, but then finds out the next day that she has been reported missing. Leon returns to the scene and through the aid of some of his photographic work discovers that a local butcher (Jones) maybe responsible, not only for her disappearance, but for various other people…

Visually the film is a mixed bag of excellent and rather poor. It is exquisitely shot by director of photography Jonathan Sela whose eye for visuals, i.e. lots of hazy lighting coming through venetian blinds etc, matches that seen in earlier neo-noir Tony Scott films. Other than that the visuals are a bit of a paradox; the special effects being both gleefully gruesome, but undermined horribly by some truly ropey CGI. It’s a bit of a shame as the visuals alone may have been enough to recommend the film on a purely visceral level, but alas they reach well beyond there budget limitations and feel cheap. Also when the action kicks in, as it often does, Sela’s compositions take the backseat while director Kitamura delivers the ‘cool shots’, perfect example being a shot where the camera whizzes in and out and around a carriage during the climatic showdown. Cool it maybe, but it is also dramatically vacant and completely meaningless.

As for the story itself, it’s a non-event with not much actually going on. You can tell a mile off that it was based on a short story as it is stretched thinly over ninety minutes. Director Kitamura is more concerned with showing off his visual flair than adequately telling an effective narrative. The acting from everyone involved is as heartless as the visuals, especially from Vinnie Jones, a man whose range seems to stretch from blank to grimace on cue and nothing more. It’s essentially Terminator-lite but not anywhere near as frightening. And that is the films biggest problem. It simply isn’t scary…

Maybe if the film was edited down to a shorter running time and the CGI was spruced up it might have something to offer, but as it is this is one train you might be better off giving a miss…