Film Review: Strangers on a Train

One of Hitchcock's better known and better received films, Strangers on a Train was nearly perfect, until the ending. The film, like almost every Hitchcock film, is a masterful example of how to play with the audience's emotions. I didn't know who to root for the entire way through, a skill that is purely Hitchcock's.

The film centers around two men who meet on a train (as you could tell from the title). One of the men is a famous tennis player, while the other is a strange man who lives with his parents and has psychoticideas about murder. When he devises a plan that the two will "swap murders," the men become entangled in a battle of wits and threats, when Bruno, the psychotic man, carries out the murder of Guy, the tennis player's, wife.

Robert Walker is brilliant in his role as the villain, Bruno. He is completely convincing as a pschopath who really doesn't have any sort of remorse or ill feelings about murder. Its as if it is all a game to him. He would have killed his own father (who he tries to get Guy to kill) if he had thought he would have gotrten away with it. A purely evil villain.

Farleigh Granger plays Guy, another perfect performance. I had previously seen him in Hitchcock's film "Rope" (which was even better). In this film, he plays almost the exact antithesis of his character in Rope. He never condones the murder of his wife. It is very convenient for him, as he has wanted a divorce because she is carrying another man's child, he even goes so far as to say he would like to strangle her, but he never would actually carry it out. However, he is never actually mad that Bruno killed her, just that he was implicated in the whole ordeal. Thus begins the moral ambiguity.

The suspense of this struggle between Bruno and Guy is pulled off in only a way that Hitchcock can do. Culminating in a sequence that plays out during one of Guy's tennis matches, while at the same time Bruno plans to frame him for the murder. This sequence is absolutely brilliant. It has you on the edge of your seat as delay after delay keep you guessing at the films conclusion.

But then the film lost me. Throughout the film, it remains captivating in its storytelling. The plot remains a very real possibility. The moral struggle comes because of the thought that this could very well actually happen. The final scene seemed to take all of that realism and throw it out the window, sending the film spinning (quite literally) out of control into an overly stylized and overly dramatic end. I think the film would have ended much better had hitchcock chosen to end the film differently, but I am not going to tell a master how to perform his craft.

Overall, an 8/10. Could have very well been a 10 if it weren't for the ending. Next week I will be reviewing Rear Window. Until then, I'm outta here.