After a period of volunteer work with needy children in China promoted by his church, Roy (Woody Harrelson) and his wife Jessie (Emily Mortimer) decide to travel to Russia by train through the Trans Siberian Railway. Roy is a naive American with a great passion in locomotives and Jessie is an aspirant photographer haunted by her past of "bad girl". During the travel, they share their cabin with the Spanish Carlos (Eduardo Noriega) and his American girlfriend Abby (Kate Mara) and they befriend the young couple. In a layover, Roy visits other trains in the yard and is left behind; Jessie decides to wait for him on the next station and Carlos and Abby stay with her. While waiting for Roy, Carlos invites Jessie to travel to the countryside with him and they see a ruined church in the middle of nowhere. Carlos tries to force Jessie to have sex with him, and Jessie kills him with a plank. Jessie does not report the crime and meets with Roy in the next train. When Roy presents the narcotic division detective Grinko (Ben Kingsley) that is sharing the cabin with him, Jessie finds that Carlos was trafficking drugs and scared, she tells many lies to them. However the experienced Grinko does not buy her story and the couple gets in trouble.

"Transsiberian" is a thriller with a promising beginning, good first half but with a poor commercial conclusion. Roy, performed by Woody Harrelson, for example, is the stereotype of an American tourist overseas, silly and naive. Jessie is a complex, credible and very well developed character, performed by the wonderful Emily Mortimer. Ben Kingsley is outstanding, as usual, and Eduardo Noriega and the unknown Kate Mara complete the great lead cast. The cinematography is very beautiful supporting the tense and cold atmosphere; the screenplay and the direction keep the tension along the plot. However, there are some weird situations, like for example Jessie and Roy disclosing their intimacy to new acquaintances; or Jessie unable to get rid off the drugs in the train. The conclusion is unrealistic and disappointing, but anyway this movie is entertaining. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Expresso Transiberiano" ("Trans-Siberian Express")

I'd heard good things about TRANSSIBERIAN, but on reflect it turns out to be a pretty disappointing film when all is said and done. There are only so many plot contrivances and coincidences that I'm willing to forgive when watching a movie, and TRANSSIBERIAN overruns that quota by a long shot.

The story – when it eventually gets going – involves a couple of American tourists journeying on a train travelling from China all the way to Moscow. It's an eight-day journey, and in that time they befriend a young couple with a secret so obvious that even the most novice of film viewers will surely work it out about a year before the leads do.

Along the way, there are a great deal of needless scenes which the writers will no doubt say are required to build 'mood' or 'character' – I'd say they're there to pad out a too thin running time. Characters come and go, disappear and return, with little explanation, and one of the biggest drawbacks when it comes to engaging with the movie is the total lack of a sympathetic character. Emily Mortimer, the nominal heroine of the piece, is nothing more than a repulsive figure the viewer can elicit zero sympathy for.

Elsewhere, Woody Harrelson struggles as nice, friendly family man-type guy (miscasting anybody?) and Ben Kingsley is introduced in one of those prologues that you know were tacked on in post-production in order to give some oomph to a film in which nothing much happens for the first hour (his one-dimensional character could have just appeared later on and the effect would have been exactly the same). Spanish actor Eduardo Noriega gives the best performance, albeit playing another unpleasant figure.

The requisite twists and turns in the story soon start adding up, but despite his best efforts, director Brad Anderson (who made the sublime THE MACHINIST) fails to make any of it believable or, indeed, interesting. In fact, it's pretty tiresome, especially once we move into sub-Hostel territory late on in the proceedings. The climax stretches contrivance way too far, complete with Bond-style villains who keep talking ON AND ON AND ON, thus giving the protagonists a chance to survive longer than they believably should. A very shoddy film.

Russian police detective Ilya Grinko (Ben Kingsley) investigates a likely gangland murder for drugs in Vladivostok. Roy (Woody Harrelson) and Jessie (Emily Mortimer) are Christian missionaries taking the train from Beijing to Moscow. He befriends cabin mates Spanish Carlos (Eduardo Noriega) and his girlfriend Abby (Kate Mara). Roy is trusting while Jessie has her suspicions. Carlos is transporting a collection of souvenir matryoshka dolls. After a stop, Jessie finds Roy missing from the train. Assuming he missed the train, she leaves at the next stop to wait for Roy. Carlos and Abby get off with her. The next day, Carlos takes Jessie to an abandoned church. He tries something which escalates into Jessie killing Carlos. She returns to the train and finds Roy with a new cabin mate in Grinko.

There's a train. There's an attempt at suspense. It's looking like a Hitchcock movie. However there are things that keep gnawing at me. First of all, I doubt anybody transports drugs from Beijing into Russia. It just makes no sense. It's tough enough to get drugs into China with the death penalty as your reward. Why would anybody keep transporting it around? Just sell it in China. I buy that drugs come into Vladivostok but why bring it into China just to go back into Russia. It's not a short cut anybody with drugs would ever take.

As for movie, it's not that suspenseful. The characters are more annoying than anything. I didn't particularly like Roy or Jessie. They are annoyingly naive. It's some kind of stereotype of Christian missionaries. I also don't really understand why Carlos is waving the dolls around. People just act strangely. Roy seems completely clueless. Carlos seems like such a clingy bad guy that I can't buy Jessie's flirtiness unless they give me a reason like Jessie and Roy have sex problems. In general, I have problems with these character doing what they do. As the story gets more and more twisty, I lose more and more interest. I never buy into these people and I don't care about their predicaments.