To see the words 'A Golan-Globus Production' on a movie poster in the '80s was not usually a sign of good quality cinema. Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus were a pair of Israeli cousins who had financed various films in their homeland throughout the '60s and '70s before deciding to have a crack at the American market by purchasing a distribution and production outfit called the Cannon Group, Inc. Around 85% of Golan- Globus's Canon output was low-grade, trashy rubbish, more often than not badly made and badly acted. Every now and then, however, a Golan-Globus film would turn up that was a little better than the usual fare. Something slightly more artistically motivated and more high-brow in conception. Into this bracket would fall films like the Julie Andrews vehicle Duet For One, Jean Luc Godard's adaptation of King Lear, or the exciting existential thriller Runaway Train , directed by celebrated Russian film-maker Andrei Konchalovsky during his 'break-into-the- American-mainstream' phase.

Runaway Train is notable for two remarkable leading performances from Jon Voight and Eric Roberts. Voight plays Manny Manheim, a notoriously violent bank robber serving a life sentence in a remote Alaskan maximum security prison. Manny is a legend amongst the other inmates, an almost animalistic criminal considered so dangerous that at one point the warden, Ranken (John P. Ryan), had his cell door welded for a period of three years. Once allowed back into general population, Manny plans an audacious escape aided by none-too-bright inmate Buck (Eric Roberts) whose position as a laundry room worker gives him access to a potential escape route. Against Manny's wishes, Buck decides to join in him in daring break for freedom. Unfortunately for them, they seek refuge aboard a train during their getaway only for the elderly engineer to suffer a heart attack at the controls. Through an accumulation of unforeseeable coincidences, the emergency break system on the train fails and the two escaped convicts find themselves aboard a runaway train, gathering momentum as it surges unmanned and out-of-control across the Alaskan wilderness. An inexperienced hostler, Sara (Rebecca De Mornay), is the only other person on board. Together the three of them fight against the power of technology (the train) and the power of nature (the harsh Alaskan conditions) as they try to regain control of the train.

Violent, bloody, sharply characterised and frequently very exciting, Runaway Train may well be the jewel in the Golan-Globus crown. It's a tough film for sure – peopled mainly by ugly characters who do little more than snarl and threaten each other in abrasive, foul-mouthed exchanges – but it's never anything less than enthralling. The strength of characterisation is impressive. Voight's terrifying convict; Roberts' dumb but loyal opportunist escapee; De Mornay's vulnerable unwilling participant; Ryan's sadistically over-zealous warden – all fabulously written characters, played to the hilt by actors in top form. In one unforgettable scene, Voight attempts to uncouple the cars to stop the back section of the train – the couplings close over his hand, literally tearing off almost all his fingers in a shocking spray of pulpy gore. Still grinning maniacally, his hand a bloodied stump, Manny struggles back aboard and continues to terrorise his travelling companions. He's every bit as chillingly convincing as, say, Robert De Niro in the Cape Fear remake, a role that has striking similarities. The location is unusual and effective – the vast, freezing wilds of Alaska provide a perfect backdrop for the drama on-screen, enhanced further still by Trevor Jones's atmospheric score. The film's unrelentingly ugly tone and a strangely pretentious ending are minor quibbles, but overall Runaway Train is a thunderingly good film.