An ex-soldier traumatized by death turned monk fond of martial arts is our hero. Cutting 'Death Train' some slack because it's an action flick means you're willing to look past hokey elements. What's harder is how unexciting the whole thing feels, moves. Other than decent explosions in the first hour this is slow city. Arnold Vosloo isn't given much to work with as the head villain and Mathis Landwehr while sufficiently built up by some sad flashbacks is stuck in a cookie cutter tale.
A group of thieves lead by Lennart (Vosloo) break into a research facility, steal deadly viruses for their buyer to be used as bio weapons. To make their escape from the country they board a train disguised as priests, nuns which is full of people, religion clergy heading for Lourdes. A group of Monks including Lasko (Landwehr) are made aware of them and their plan and must save everyone on board before the worst case scenario can happen.
Beneath the surface this is a fairly obvious 'Die Hard' clone. A bunch of flicks have gone the train route before and it's serviceable if done right. You get the feeling that with a more capable director or fine tuning the script this could have been a fun trip, but what's on offer is rather flat. The religious element isn't heavy handed, but ultimately you're gonna spend nearly two hours and all you'll have to show for it is three decent explosions (two vehicle related, one helicopter) and quick fisticuffs (two sequences on top of the train).
The word that bests sums up 'Death Train' is generic. The energy level is pretty low for the first halve and mostly boring until things kick up a bit later. Scenes where head priests, police try to map out a plan are awful and misc side characters pad time. It's shot well from a technical standpoint, but never rises above. Also known as 'Lasko: DeathTrain' this would see a short lived tv series starring Landwehr years later.
