Evasive Action (1998)

I gave it a 7.5 out of 10

I saw this movie before reading any reviews, and I thought it was very funny. I was very surprised to see the overwhelmingly negative reviews this film received from critics.

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

I watched this movie in a hotel room so was kind of a captive audience. Action movies on a train work, much better than any other kind of transport in my opinion. But why, why, why would you put a shed load of convicts on a passenger train in the first place? Roy Scheider was actually quite convincing as a hard man, it's just the movie is seriously flawed. The plot is ludicrous, the script poor, the acting average and what the hell ever happened to the film quote loving nutter and the little girl? There were so many people running across the roof of the train, they needed traffic signals. But in the right place at the right time, as I was, this is watchable and just made me laugh. My movie quote "We're going to need a bigger boat" No shark in their right mind would go anywhere near this version of Roy Scheider.

EVASIVE ACTION is nothing more than a cheap, B-movie rip-off of CON AIR, made by schlock producer Andrew Stevens who seemed to churn such efforts out with a monotonous regularity. However, there's little that's monotonous about this particular film, which proves to be a hoot through and through.A group of dangerous prisoners - and one decent one - are being transported to a new prison via train (after that incident when "the plane came down in Vegas", nudge nudge). Inevitably they break loose, leading to all manner of low-rent mayhem aboard the train. The direction is poor and the scriptwriting worse, with one exception: the genius creation of Hector the Director, a psychotic loon played to the hilt by B-movie icon Clint Howard. A manic cross between Malkovich's Cyrus the Virus and Hopkins's Hannibal the Cannibal, Hector only speaks in film quotes and is a delight to watch.The poverty-row budget is all too apparent in the dodgy staging of the action sequences; occasionally the film will cut away from the action altogether (such as a bomb blast) when they can't afford to show it. After a while, it becomes apparent that the money was blown on amassing a cast of B-movie stalwarts and familiar faces. Headlining them all is Roy Scheider as a grizzled Mafia don and long-time convict hell-bent on escape.Meanwhile, Dorian Harewood acquits himself well as a guy serving his term thanks to a miscarriage of justice, getting the viewer on side early on and coming across as a truly decent character. Elsewhere we get ROBOCOP's Ray Wise as a Sheriff and RED HEAT's Ed O'Ross as a prison warden. Patrick Swayze's brother Don even turns up as another bad guy, and you quickly realise why he never reached the stardom that his brother enjoyed. Most people will scoff at EVASIVE ACTION as a piece of trash, but this B-movie hound thoroughly enjoyed it!

For me, the best part of this runaway train disaster, was the closing credits, where you get to understand just how many interesting character actors are totally wasted by the ridiculous script. Let's start with Roy Scheider, as a Mafia boss. Then there is Don Swaze, Clint Howard, Ed O'Ross, and Ray Wise, all lost in the cartoon-like goings on. You have a train. You have the bad guys taking over the train. You have the train eventually crashing into Los Angeles Union Station, yet everyone in the station seems oblivious to the fact that a locomotive has just torn through half the terminal. Hero, Dorian Harewood, jumps off the speeding train with no ill effects, steals a dirt bike, and somehow gets back on the train without a misstep. The weak attempts at levity, especially with the control room operator, are pathetic. Then there is the damaged helicopter, which somehow manages to get a cop onto the roof of the train, before disappearing behind a hill in flames. I could go on and on. The intriguing cast is absolutely the only reason to see this, but only if you are prepared for the ridiculous script. - MERK

This mess of movie is just a big Con Air Rip Off. The Story, The Names, The End. Like, Clint Howards character is named Hector "The Director" and his bald compare with Malkovich character the balded Cyrus "The Virus". Don't bother watch this movie unless you are like me fan of direct-to-video movies. And at last Don Swayze looks like a Ostrich in the movie.