Disaster on the Coastliner

Ah, you have to love the 70s. Time of the made for TV movies.

This train tale of terror includes a lot of separate scenes cut together to appear like some semblance of an actual movie. Scenes range from railroad track construction, several train car interiors, and my favorite: the people gathering to protest. Why or what they are protesting is not really explained but you have to love the shoddy signs and workmanship.

The acting does its best to keep the movie bustling along the tracks. Lloyd Bridges is angry, annoyed and tries to take control pretty much in every scene he is in. I knew I recognized E.G. Marshall from somewhere but didn't recognize him without cockroaches crawling all over as from his performance in the classic Creepshow. E.G. and Lloyd butting heads trying to find a solution provide some highlights.

Bill Shatner saves this from being a true disaster. I can never get enough seeing Bill smoke cigarettes, do his mack daddy Kirk routine, and eluding the authorities all at once. He pretty much stands out whenever on screen and the epic finale makes this worth the ride.

Take the ticket for this 70s version of Speed on trains..except it's better.

Since this rare Shatner gem hadn't been available for sometime, I was thrilled to see it available for streaming on Netflix.

This is a fun "Made for TV" movie with some great stunts and decent special effects.

There seemed to be a rash of "celebrity" filled disaster flicks in the late 70s and early 80s. However this movie definitely gives some of the cheesier films a run for their money.

And any movie that allows more Shatner Toupological studies are just fine with me. And my goodness there were some great feats achieved by Bill's toupee during this opus!

And surely that wasn't fishing line wrapping all around that engine during the final crash.

Yes. Yes it was. And don't call me Shirley.

Two commuter trains are set on a collision course by a computer programmer who has a grudge against the railroad company. It is then a race against time to save the hundreds of passengers on the two trains (including the vice presidents wife) from impending disaster.

Reasons to love this movie

• Its full of stars - the guy from star trek, the guy from ironside, the guy from men in black its great to see all these 'stars' and to see how they were then.

• Its got tension, excitement and the implausible ending (which any classic disaster movie needs) -

Finally it has Lloyd Bridges reprising his role from Airplane - "Now, this is no time for coffee" What more do you need?

Effective TV-movie about two trains on collision course due to sabotage. Not as silly as many other disaster movies, but equally star-cluttered. William Shatner is funny as a con man, who might not be such a bad person after all. Exciting with good special effects.

Disaster on the Coastliner (1979)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Lloyd Bridges, Raymond Burr, William Shatner, Pat Hingle, E.G. Marshall, Robert Fuller and Paul L. Smith headline this made-for-TV disaster pic that contains some good suspense even though the actual story is perhaps the dumbest of the genre. A man (Smith) wants to prove that a derailment six years earlier was covered up so he hijacks a train, rigs all the computer controls and is prepared to crash the train into another one that just happens to be carrying the Vice President's wife. I love disaster films and anyone who does will probably want to check this thing out, although there's no question that the actual story might be the dumbest I've ever seen. Now, I'll admit that I'm no railroad expert but the bad guy had way too easy of a time getting his plan carried out and it seems like the good guys had way too much trouble trying to stop the train. We get a few reasons as to why they can't stop the train but these here are just incredibly silly and quite often had me laughing pretty hard. One of the stories is that the bad guy is communicating with the other engineer and tells him that terrorists are trying to take the train over. There are other small gimmicks that the bad guy uses to try and pull this off and they're just as silly. Half-way through the picture we get the reason that the bad guy is doing all this stuff and the film tries to make us feel sorry for him but this little plot point didn't work even though Smith gives the best performance in the film. Shatner gets to play a bad guy with a heart of gold. Burr pretty much just stays seated but he's at least entertaining. Bridges is a real hoot playing a government guy at the trains main station and seeing him pull out of gun twice in the film will give you a guaranteed laugh. As silly as many of the plot points are, there's no question that the movie also has some very tense moments. The entire lead-up to the disaster are very well directed and I thought the final fifteen-minutes were extremely tense. It's a real shame that a lot of these tense moments as well as some nice action pieces are letdown due to a rather weak screenplay. With that said, if you enjoy these made-for-TV movies then you might as well check this one out.