Customer Reviews

El Ultimo Tren

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In Spanish with subtitles, Ultimo Tren is about a group of older men who relive the ideals of their youth and try to save an old steam locomotive -- part of the country's national heritage -- from being shipped off to Hollywood. A great character piece about the relationships between the men. No blood, violence, or sex... just a good story.

El Ultimo Tren is a great film - a moving story, with excellent directing and acting. After viewing so much Hollywood thoroughfare, it was uplifting to see a film with a real human and social message, yet not delivered in a heavy-handed, ideological fashion. At one level, it is a deeply moving story of friends venturing on a risky journey together to protest the intended sale of a national treasure - a railroad engine, symbol of an entire nation's patrimony. The excellent script and acting capture the depths of human friendships, with the presence of the boy symbolizing the intergenerational dimension of the issues involved. At another level, it is about the struggle to maintain national identity in the face of a system where everything is put up for sale. I really cannot say too much in praise of this excellent film. My wife and I watched it twice in a row. After viewing it the first time, every other film we had rented seemed shallow and insigificant. Anyone looking for a good film, outside the mainstream of Hollywood thoroughfare, should see this excellent film. The acting is so much better than what one sees in Hollywood. This film is a true work of art. Five stars.

"La 33" is the last coal fired locomotive engine in Uruguay. The owner, Jimmy Ferreira (Gastón Pauls), has been hard at work cleaning and restoring the old engine so that it can be shipped to Hollywood for a movie. Anxious to promote the sale, Ferreira does a number of TV interviews - perhaps one interview too many. A group elderly gentlemen (The Friends of the Rail) watch Ferreira on TV, disgusted by what they perceive as selling off the national patrimony. So, they form a plan to steal the train to protest the sale.

This is a very beautiful film. As the restored antique engine chugs and puffs its way across the gorgeous landscape, the photography is fantastic. There are some wonderful interior shots of a cafe in Montevideo, and some stunning dawn scenes in a deserted town in the middle of nowhere. The movie score is also wonderful.

The performances by Argentine veteran actors Héctor Alterio, Federico Luppi, and José Soriano are touching, uplifting, inspiring and at times very comic as the trio who make the cross country run toward the Brazilian border.

This 2002 Uruguayan film won many awards, including Montréal World Film Festival award for Best Latin American Feature Film and Best Screenplay, and Spain's Goya for Best Spanish Language Foreign Film.

Maverick Latino DVD features include English subtitles, scene selection, image gallery, and trailer.

This is the type of film that one may discover by accident. It then becomes one of the jewels of your film collection. It's a nice movie, suitable for all ages, very entertaining and highly recommended.

An old locomotive is going to be sold to Hollywood. Two train workers and a child decide to steal the train and travel across country to Brazil to save this old national treasure. A Romantic train steaming along the tracks past countryside and villages... many of whom help hide the train from the authorities in hot pursuit. Some good performances. In Spanish with English subtitles.

I enjoyed it. Now I know what the country of south America looks like. I also brushed up on my Spanish.

While I agree with the other 4- and 5-star reviewers that this relatively unknown foreign movie is an excellent family film, with a great script, beautiful photography and engaging music, I write my review from the viewpoint of a railfan. What percent of the movie was shot aboard or alongside the train? Is the train that interesting? Does the movie portray an accurate account of railway procedures?

Since the story deals with a group of elderly men and one grandson stealing a steam locomotive to keep it from being sold and shipped out of Uruguay, normal railway practice is not an issue. The story takes place over two nights and parts of two days and the lack of a crew change is emphasized by the weariness of the hijackers. While acquiring more fuel is not addressed, the need to replenish water for the locomotive is. Although the word "train" is part of the title, the single locomotive is the only piece of railway equipment seen moving at any time during the film. But because of the beautiful countryside through which the locomotive travels, leaving a trail of white smoke and steam, the chase never becomes tiresome. Overall, the locomotive, whether stopped or in motion, occupies the screen for at least 80 percent of the film. The scenes away from the locomotive primarily show the owner and the police trying to decide how to stop the train without damaging the engine. In this story of a patriotic hijacking, the hijackers are portrayed as the "good guys" and the police, or at least the locomotive's owner, is the "villan".

This is the only foreign language DVD in my collection, and reading English subtitles is not a bother at all. I highly recommend El Ultimo Tren to anyone, railway enthusiast or not. It is family entertainment that may inspire some viewers to visit the beautiful countryside of Uruguay someday.