The Burning Train

March. 20,1980      
Rating:
6.9
Trailer Synopsis Cast

The plot revolves around a train named Super Express that catches fire on its inaugural run from New Delhi to Mumbai.

Dharmendra as  Ashok
Jeetendra as  Ravi
Hema Malini as  Seema
Parveen Babi as  Sheetal
Vinod Mehra as  Rakesh
Danny Denzongpa as  Randhir
Neetu Singh as  Madhu
Vinod Khanna as  Vinod
Iftekhar as  Railway Board Chairman
Simi Garewal as  Schoolteacher

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Reviews

Cubussoli
1980/03/20

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

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Livestonth
1980/03/21

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

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Kaydan Christian
1980/03/22

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

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Zandra
1980/03/23

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

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sammy
1980/03/24

How does one logically stop a burning train with failed brake controls from meeting its fatal destiny?Please note: This movie does not provide the answer to the above question. However, it does provide practical how to guides to do the following:1. Deliver a baby on board such a train right at the climax. 2. Sing a well -orchestrated prayer in midst of the commotion ( after ensuring that the leader singer has touched up the make up) 3. When looking for a red cloth, ignore the kid wearing a red sweater sitting on your lap ( and twenty more sitting behind) , and convince a woman with ample bosom to remove her red saree to do the needful. 4. Have romantic moments in a burning coach. 5. Dress up looking like moon-walkers from Jumbo circus. 6. Write a plot of a movie titled "The Burning Train" that includes 1 h 20 minutes that have nothing to do ( remotely) with a train or burning. 7. Assemble the largest number of Indian cultural stereo-types and give them obnoxiously type-cast roles to play.If you are interested in the above topics, do watch the 3:04:39 worth of reel time that this movie runs for. ( Also the music is boring).I watched this flick 15-17 years ago , when I was a kid. What prompted me to write this review after all these years was the train wreck scene from Skyfall (2012) which in itself is a tribute to this marvelous piece of Absurdist cinema.

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sunny one
1980/03/25

I think this movie was ahead of its time, and would be a great film to remake with current technology and sensibility. It is a flawed film, and many of these flaws are due to its 80 Bollywood tropes, but it has a lot of plus points which are still impressive in 2016. I will mention them first before I discuss the flaws:Great character drama. The train is full of all sorts of different kinds of characters, funny, quirky, sexy, angry, criminal, religious, young, old, family, couples, single, and the interactions between them make for very entertaining drama. Think of a road trip movie, except on a train with a myriad of characters.Great screenplay. Except for the speedbreakers at the start, once the journey on the train begins the screenplay packs a lot of interesting situations and turns of events that keep the journey interesting; the initial character introductions and banter, the realization the breaks have failed, the train catching fire, the attempts by the passengers to save themselves, the frantic efforts by the railway officials to come up with ideas to save the train racing against time. There is never really a dull moment. Great action. I would not have thought an 80's Bollywood movie would have had such technical finesse. The fast moving burning train actually looks real, the interiors look real, you actually feel like it was shot in an actual train(I am sure some portions were) The parts where some of the characters climb out of the moving train and then try to get to the next cabin by going across the windows or running on the top of the train looks like they really did it. The pyrotechnics are on par with 80's Hollywood. It is evident that this was a big budget movie for its time and it is executed with the same professionalism as similar disaster movies like Towering Inferno.Great acting. Aside from the 80's acting style, another layer of realism is added by the reactions of the passengers to the impending doom, the desperation to survive and amidst all the mayhem to maintain their humanity. Vinod Khanna as the train's engineer particularly is notable and very handsome, you do wonder why the gene was not passed on to Akshay Khanna.Now I will begin with the cons:Takes time to start. The initial half hour is about introducing the leads and their love interests, and there are a couple of unnecessary songs. In fact the only song that really works in the movie is the lone song on the train between all the characters to entertain themselves on the journey. This actually can happen on Indian trains.Female characters are weak. This is 80's patriarchal Bollywood when feminism had not really taken off yet, and it is evident here as the female characters have little personality and just react to their male counterparts. At times OTT. Another 80's Bollywood staple is the "Disshom" fighting scenes which are cheesy and you have the OTT comic characters, the Johnny livers of their time, like Asrani with their slapstick routines. The villainous characters are one dimensionally bad. If it was remade today for a contemporary audiences many of these 80's staples should and would be done away, leaving a great disaster movie. There are not many notable Bollywood disaster movies, so this would provide great material for a contemporary one.

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GaneshKSalian
1980/03/26

The Burning Train is a good watch but is very lengthy.The movie has many characters which makes it boring plus even there are some songs which could have been avoided which could have made the movie short.But otherwise the movie is an stylish action packed mass entertainer.Story:- Vinod Verma is an employee of the Indian Railways, who always had a dream of making the perfect and fastest train in India. After years of dedication the Railway Board approves his prototype of the Super Express. But these years had had their toll on his personal life, as his wife, Sheetal and son, are more like strangers to him. He hopes to make it up to them after the train makes it inaugural run from Delhi to Bombay in a record 14 hours. Showing him support are his friends, Ashok and Rakesh. But an embittered fellow-employee named Randhir, the son of the Chair of the Railway Board, has other plans for Vinod and the Super Express - plans that may derail Vinod's delicate personal balance, and make the Super Express' inaugural journey also the final one.The story is fine The direction is good.The music is okay.The action scenes are excellent.Performances:- Dharmendra steals the show with his stellar performance.Vinod Khanna is good.Jeetendra is perfect.Hema Malini,Parveen Babi and Neetu Singh are okay in their respective roles.Danny Dengzonpa is superb.All in all,The Burning Train is a good weekend watch!

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roysid
1980/03/27

One of the classics, this movie remains much ahead of it's times by it's visualization and special effects. A multi-starrer in which the central theme in neither love-story nor revenge story but rather about a burning train. A very well done disaster movie.Ashok(Dharmendra) and Vinod(Vinod Khanna) are two friends. Ashok is engaged with Seema(Hema Malini) and Vinod is married with Sheetal(Parveen Bobby).Vinod has dreams of building a a super fast train which will cover the distance between Delhi and Bombay(Mumbai) withing 12 hours(That too in 1980).Rajdhani currently takes 16.5 hours at best. And he wins the tender from Indian Railways to build the fastest train. He asks the two tender losers Ranjeet(Danny) and Rakesh(Vinod Mehra) to help him. But Ranjeet has some sinister plans in mind.Meanwhile Ashok's life is in a mess. His father failed in business and committed suicide. His fiancée Seema has broke the engagement.Six years passed by. The train is built. Vinod's marriage with Sheetal is almost falling apart because of Vinod's full devotion to the train.The maiden journey of the train starts at Delhi. Enter a vast range of characters as passengars, a smuggler, a priest, a mullah, a cbi officer, a dancer etc. The 3rd hero, a small time crook Ravi(Jitendra) meets his love Neetu Singh on the train.Ashok is also on the train . But he sees Seema in the train, gets so disturbed that he gets down at Agra. Meanwhile Ranjeet has removed the brakes and placed bombs in the train and has got down in Agra.Ashok and Ranjeet meet in a bar in Agra and Ashok learns about the bomb. He rushes back to the train to save it. The train's brake has failed and only desperate measures can now save it.Ashok learns now that Seema's leg is amputated and that's why she broke the engagement. Meanwhile in the chaos, fire spreads, the train burns and hence the name "The Burning train".The rest of the movie is a struggle by everyone, particularly by Ashok, Vinod and Ravi to prevent the disaster from happening.See the movie..it's worth a watch.

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