Midnight Meat Train (2008)

As a typical New York photographer, Leon’s (Bradley Cooper) goal has been to capture the essence of the city around him. Breaking through his lens and into the world around him, Leon helps protect a girl who he met on the subway from a group of hooligans harassing her. The mornings paper provides him with the unfortunate news that the same girl has gone missing. Delving into this mystery a little more than the average photographer would, Leon crosses paths with a quiet man in a business suit (Vinnie Jones) who has a passion for killing people on the late night train. The man enjoys stripping his victims naked and hangs them up just like a meat packing factory, proving just how cold and heartless a killer he really is. The adventure that Leon dives into in his attempt to stop the main in the suit has alienated his girlfriend (Leslie Bibb) and put distance between him and the investigating agent (Roger Bart). But it isn’t until the end of the movie that we find out exactly what the midnight meat train really is.

This film has only made it to about 100 screens total, most of them in second run theaters, so there isn’t high expectations that this movies audience will come from the theater. The possibilities will increase as we come closer to the DVD release.

While this film comes off as a decent horror film, it definitely has its hang ups. The dialogue is fairly phony even for a horror film. As the genre has expanded, we’ve become more accustom to much deeper character development and portrayal which Midnight Meat Train clearly falls short on. The awful characters are made worse through the stagnant acting of Bradley Cooper and Leslie Bibb. The best performance of the entire film is done by Vinnie Jones without even speaking a single word.

The flaws in this movie don’t carry over into the directing, as Ryuthei Kitamura has done an excellent job. The shots are all well framed with a great visual style, but the decision to use computer generated gore breaks the horror elements leaving most of the audience laughing. Kitamura clearly has the skill to create a decent movie, let’s just hope he has the chance to after this.

You’ll find yourself laughing throughout most of the movie due to awful catch phrases like “I got a train to catch” or the spaghetti western style stand off at the films end. Oh, and feel free to take a bathroom or cigarette break during the middle of the film as all you’ll miss is a poorly done sex scene that makes Cinemax look graphic.

If you’re offered a free ticket, go check it out. Otherwise, wait for it to hit your Netflix queue.