director | Ryuhei Kitamura
starring | Bradley Cooper, Leslie Bibb, Vinnie Jones etc.
Based on a Clive Barker short story, a deadly game of cat and blah blah blah, when obsession turns to yada yada yada, Vinnie Jones etc.
Delightfully stupid film, this. The plot is pure nonsense: in a nutshell, mild-mannered photographer rescues a prostitute from being attacked in a subway station, she later vanishes and he becomes obsessed with learning the truth of her disappearance, believing that a mysterious butcher may be slaughtering people on the last train. Yeah, nonsense. But it’s well acted nonsense. Bradley Cooper (him from Wet Hot American Summer) is good as the lead, Leslie Bibb puts in a nice turn as his exasperated girlfriend and Vinnie Jones -- bravely playing against type -- gives a sensitive, nuanced performance as an existentially conflicted homosexual performance artist. Only joking -- he’s the emotionless psychopath killing people on the train. The reason why though isn’t made clear until the final ten minutes and is -- ultimately -- a bit of a cop-out (and doesn’t really make a lot of sense) but up until that point the film does a good job of maintaining suspense and has a nice line in grisly (if not especially gory) death scenes. The director is Ryuhei Kitamura who made the similarly silly Versus a few years ago, but while that film was leavened by a sly, subtle sense of humour The Midnight Meat Train is relentlessly serious -- as blunt and impassive as the craggy face of Mr. Vincent Peter Jones.
meaningless rating | one and a half thumbs up
Brooke Shields is in it for a bit too. Here’s a picture of Brooke Shields licking something off her (enormous!) hands.
