Watch The First Great Train Robbery For Free

Boring, over-political, tech fuzed mess

Boring

Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Great production values and great performances almost bring off Michael Crichton's thin plot in this 1978 film about an 1855 robbery caper. Sean Connery and Lesley Anne Down are both solid in their parts as the mastermind and his accomplice/mistress, but both are outshone by Donald Sutherland, who has the best part by far and he was never better. The film has the look and feel of mid 19th century England down pat, and if the story had leaned less on tired devices such as "the routine never varies", which is used over and over, the film would have benefited. Screenwriter/novelist Michael Crichton clearly needed a co-writer, but his stock was so high in Hollywood at the time he even persuaded United Artists to let him direct. The acrobatic moving train heist sequence is pretty spectacular, but would have been utterly impossible on a train in 1855. One other highlight is Jerry Goldsmith's score, which has to rate as one of this veteran composer's best.

In 1854 England, Edward Pierce (Sean Connery) plans a daring theft of a shipment of gold being transported monthly from London to Folkestone to finance the Crimean War. He recruits pickpocket Robert Agar (Donald Sutherland), his actress girlfriend Miriam (Lesley-Anne Down), and various other co-conspirators. The safe has 4 keys which must be copied. Then the gold must be stolen from a moving train.Michael Crichton wrote the novel based loosely on the real events. He then wrote the screenplay and directed the movie. This is strictly his show, and the weakest part is his direction. The jokes are on the page but rarely translated to laughs on the screen. The pacing is ponderous. Crichton just doesn't have the directing gene. The action is right there with Sean Connery crawling on top of the train. There are some great stunts going on. Clean Willy climbing the walls is very compelling. But the tension isn't in any of these scenes. Crichton doesn't know how to film action. This movie desperately needs a better director.

A caper should be interesting, fast moving and a joy to watch. This 1978 film is anything but. In fact, we would have been better off had author Michael Crichton told about the Crimean War.The film takes place in 1855 England with the latter and France at war with Russia over the Crimea. British soldiers were paid in gold that was shipped by train.When a robber is thrown off the train and killed, this gives Sean Connery, aided by Donald Sutherland, the idea of pulling off such a heist.The film is mostly devoted to making the necessary sets of keys so they can rob the train while it's in motion.It is interesting how they pursue this, but you want the film to move ahead until you get to the actual robbery scene.It finally happens, but by then one is annoyed with the whole film.

Writing and directing The Great Train Robbery, Michael Crichton took much license with the facts of the story's basis, mostly to incorporate a tone of sardonic humor and mean-spirited mustachioed grinning. Sir Sean Connery has always been a great light comedian, having played Bond as a discreetly comic character. That's probably why Lazenby and Moore never totally matched him: They played 007 too orthodox. In Connery's charismatic oeuvre, master safecracker Edward Pierce is no exception.The inimitable Donald Sutherland, playing a Victorian pickpocket and con man, is somewhat miscast as Connery's partner. He is not convincingly English, to my surprise frankly, though he does bring a new characteristic or two to virtually each film he's in, and here he's not just Connery's cohort but his foil. Leslie Ann Down plays Connery's moll and co-conspirator, and she appears to have been preordained to wear Victorian undergarments.The plot for the heist is rather upfront: The train's safe, containing the gold, is protected with four keys, each in different hands. The challenge is to divide these holders from their keys, if possible in scenarios that serious, by-the-book Victorian gentlemen would be opposed to explaining to the police, so one aged banker is shadowed at a dogfight and another is intercepted in a brothel. There's also a Stopwatch Sequence for caper enthusiasts like me: Connery and Sutherland undergo numerous trials before endeavoring to burglarize the railway company office, and we get a gracefully stage-managed robbery effort with all the timeless taps like the guard reappearing a nanosecond after the critical moment and such.One of the foremost amusements of this drum-tight caper is the way it's determinedly in the Victorian era. The costumes and the art direction are sincere, Crichton infuses his dialogue with undoubtedly genuine Victorian gangland wording, and, for the climactic train heist, they even constructed a whole operational train. Other gratifications: The nefarious deception used to smuggle Connery into the protected car with the gold; the chase sequence atop the train; and, certainly, the loin-scorchingly superb presence of Down, who is wryly funny in her own right.An ornately thorough and exciting caper that parades historical accuracy in support of the tempting charisma of gentleman scoundrels up to no good. Connery and Sutherland are unscrupulous to their foundations but full of audacity and shrewdness. We're supportive of them all the way, with their dashing top hats, rustling coat-tails and panorama of facial hair.There's a patent two-act structure to the proficient script. Crichton has a scientist's sensitivity to exactitude. First the crack team toil through the preparation phases, as they progressively appropriate indentations of the four keys necessary to unlock the safe, resulting in the heist itself on a train tearing through the British scenery. In the course of this era of steam power, it appeared a hopeless scheme. Meek, perhaps, by the wicked tempo of modern action sequences, Crichton nevertheless infuses a rousing realism with Connery mannishly performing his own stunts as he traverses the rooftop through clouds of grimy smoke, for the golden fleece.All around, Crichton absorbs the tissue and texture of whimsical Victoriana from the bitter brick walls of the prison for Wayne Sleep's lithe prison escape to the plush, glossy furnishings of the brothel where the sexy Down slips a key from Alan Webb's frenziedly horny bank manager. But naturalism is not the approach, Crichton is after a giddy attribute like it's being told as a tall story in a pub sopping in overstatement and heightened deceit to whitewash impractical snags.