Quarantine Spoiler Movie Review: Money Train (1995) or White Man Can't Rob Trains Either

In this time of quarantine and boredom, I am diving into some dark corners of the streaming universe. Tonight as I scrolled through the 1995 Wesley Snipes, Woody Harrelson and Jennifer Lopez classic, Money Train. A couple years after the cultural impact and success of White Men Can't Jump, Hollywood looked to cash in on the Wesley/Woody chemistry that led to such incredible box office success. There is a line about lighting striking twice. Short story, it rarely does. This review is going to ruin the movie, so you don't fall in to the trap I did. Remembering that I saw it or at least wanted to see it as a kid and wasting any precious quarantine time on this forgettable gem from the mid 90s.

Somehow, a movie that takes place on basically subway trains, cost nearly $68 million to produce. White Men Can't Jump cost less than 31 million. It grossed more than 90 million dollars at the box office. It shouldn't be shocking that Hollywood dreamed of a blockbuster return from this crime caper.

Woody and Wesley play cop versions of their White Men characters. Basically adding bad action, trains and some classic 90s action move dialogue. In one of her first movie roles, Jennifer Lopez inhabits the Rosie Perez character. But add the fact that she is the token, hard edge by the book cop. Robert Blake plays one of the more over the top racist action movie characters of the 90s. He also has the pleasure of delivering some absolutely terrible dialogue.

Woody and Wesley retain some of the chemistry from White Men and they have some fun scenes of quick and clever dialogue. But the real sparks fly between Snipes and Lopez. In a very silly movie, their connection is one of the few plausible events. They dance and then they box. It becomes a seemingly believable connection. 

Woody plays the screw up well. First he gambles himself into debt, then when his brother gives him is life savings, he loses it trying to stop a mugging. There is some odd visual juxtaposition of Woody's character getting beaten up while Snipes and Lopez make love. It's as one of my college theater professors would say a sledgehammer moment. Driving a wedge between these two brothers and partners. This drives them apart. Woody into despair and out into the literal cold. 

One bright spot of this movie is Chris Cooper in a small but actually pretty interesting arsonist, psychopath called the Torch. Cooper is an all time character actor and was still a year away from his critical breakthrough in Lone Star and several years away from his huge performance in American Beauty. His unsettling turn as Torch gives the movie some needed tension every time he shows up. A movie that focused less on the stars banter and more them determining this psychopath's motive and modus operandi would have been a much more interesting script. 

The take down of the Torch leads to the classic action movie trope of the hero cops losing their badges. You couldn't make an action movie after 1985 without a mismatched hero duo, a boss who screamed and someone losing their badge.

Oh and a bad guy threatening the innocent to put our hero or heroes in an seemingly impossible situation. For Woody, that means his gambling debt must be paid by New Year's Day or they will kill Wesley. 

Threatened with the death of his brother, Cain decides to rob the money train to save the life of Able. I'm not bothering to use actual character names because it doesn't feel like either actor or the script spent much time crafting a character. But there are more than a few echos of the age old tale of sibling rivalry.

In terms of action fun, Wesley running through the restaurant beating the living hell out of the bad guys is cathartic fun. It is legitimately the only segment of the movie not involving Lopez that Snipes looks like he is having a good time. For a moment we get to see the Wesley from Passenger 57 and Demolition Man and a glimpse of the future in Blade. 

The movie picks up when the heist is finally set into motion. Woody/Cain's plan is flawed. It doesn't go as planned. Wesley swarms in to rescue his brother, and joins the ill fated heist. As an audience member, beside the fact that Robert Blake's character is abhorrent, why should we be rooting for our heroes in this caper? It is poorly step up. Until. Robert Blake goes full evil. 

He puts a passenger train in front of the runaway Money Train. Literally echoing the trolley car dilemma. Or in a shockingly unexpected metaphor to the current government crisis, what is the acceptable death toil to keep the money system rolling as expected. 

I did not expect to stumble upon a metaphor or our current situation but art is a crafty rogue sometimes. 

Wesley and Woody ignore the probable laws of physics to create a rudementary lever of sorts, which stops the runway Money Train, and launches them safely onto the previously doomed passenger train. They emerge, action movie barely scratched just in time to punch Robert Blake and watch as Jennifer Lopez arrests him for endangering the passenger train. She is cheered on by one of my favorite unknown actors, Bill Nunn, as the endangered train conductor. Nunn appeared has 71 credits on IMDB.com and I bet you'd recognize him and not be sure where from. For me, I saw him roughly twice a week during childhood as the detective trying to protect Whoopi in Sister Act. 

Money Train isn't the worst action movie of the 90s and I have seen most of them. It slogs through too much attempt at witty dialogue and wastes Lopez in a stereotypical role. But the once the heist gets rolling. In terms of train movies, it lags behind both versions of the Taking of Pelham One Two Three, Unstoppable and has nothing more than a train in common with Snowpiercer but it is not the worst thing I have seen during quarantine. 

The trolley problem that I mentioned earlier connects with our current social situation. Mashable did some work to breakdown the connections in their article here. It is not a perfect comparison and certainly Money Train took the concept and used it to define the hero and the villains of the story. But I'm sure reality won't have as neat an ending. And I really hope it doesn't take until New Years Eve either. 

The trolley problem solution also pops up in a famous quote from Star Trek, both in the original movies and the JJ Abrams re-imaginings. Hopefully the nerds can lead us through our current crisis as well.