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'Rails & Ties' is Too Predictable

By Cole Smithey
Maui Time | October 26, 2007
Alison Eastwood makes a tentative directorial debut with a made-for-TV-quality script by tin-eared Mickey Levy. Kevin Bacon plays a train engineer troubled by his wife's (Marcia Gay Harden) battle with breast cancer. Bacon’s character gets a fresh plate of crisis when his train hits the car of a depressed mother parked on the tracks with her 10-year-old son in the passenger seat. The boy escapes and goes searching for the train driver that killed his mother. Harden and Bacon are dependably strong as a middle-aged couple facing death, yet the picture has a surprisingly shallow dramatic arc that falls into place all too predictably. Alison Eastwood has a good eye for composition but misses out completely on bringing some much-needed rhythmic variety and humor to the maudlin source material.

Rated PG-13, 96 mins. (C) (Two Stars)

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Tags: Alison Eastwood, Rails & Ties

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