This film is OK though not brilliant it is worth watching. It is much better than the 2007 remake which towards the end became a total caricature of a film and also focused needlessly long on the transportation of Wade, which in this original version was done in a few minutes of film time.
SPOILERS FOLLOW: The end here is though quite unconvincing, unnatural and sudden. How Evans took Wade successfully through the gauntlet of his gang that was there eager to free him, it was some luck getting out of it alive, but the worst let down was the way Wade went up on the train willingly when he could have easily escaped at that point as the train was already leaving. Just refuse to board it.
The excuse he gave "I am doing it so as not to owe you anything" is laughable since he basically chose going to the gallows or at least to a long sentence in prison instead of freedom and in real life things like that simply don't happen.
But otherwise the acting was good and the psychology of captive and captor very interesting though it made Evans too much of a hero, Butterfield even releasing him from the duty of delivering Wade yet he chooses to stay on ignoring wife and children.
SPOILERS FOLLOW: The end here is though quite unconvincing, unnatural and sudden. How Evans took Wade successfully through the gauntlet of his gang that was there eager to free him, it was some luck getting out of it alive, but the worst let down was the way Wade went up on the train willingly when he could have easily escaped at that point as the train was already leaving. Just refuse to board it.
The excuse he gave "I am doing it so as not to owe you anything" is laughable since he basically chose going to the gallows or at least to a long sentence in prison instead of freedom and in real life things like that simply don't happen.
But otherwise the acting was good and the psychology of captive and captor very interesting though it made Evans too much of a hero, Butterfield even releasing him from the duty of delivering Wade yet he chooses to stay on ignoring wife and children.