AllMovie

In this disaster movie about an overnight express train out of Moscow, a fire starts in one passenger car and quickly spreads, threatening the safety of the travelers. During the first and less successful half of the film, the lives of the passengers in one car are tentatively sketched - an airline flight attendant and a soldier strike up a mutual attraction, a black market operative guards his suitcase full of illegal money, a female conductor presses a relationship with a man she let onto the train for free, and other passengers relate their own hardships or indirectly reveal serious character flaws. During the second and more effective half of the film, disaster strikes, the fire starts, and with the flames coming very close to the actors, it was probably not a long stretch to feign terror or pain. The action scenes are well-executed and compensate for the surface treatment of the characters in the film.