"The Man on the Train" is a masterfully crafted, character driven, subtitled French flick about two aging men who come together by happenstance. What makes the film interesting is not the story but the way the two men with very opposite lifestyles covet the other's as it appears to be the stuff of his own dreams. The film, however, fizzles on story in the very end as it inches ever closer to its date with destiny and then wanders into a metaphysical sort of hocus-pocus conclusion. The pleasure in this film, which received high marks from public and critics alike, is in the journey as the destination is unsatisfying and anticlimactic. Recommended only for foreign film freaks. (B)
Review of Man on the Train
