Coming out of the same studio that gave us RuPaul's Drag Race, and stacked with a whole crew of former contestants, Stop! That! Train! plays like RuPaul basically taking a bow for the entire franchise she's built. It's not really a gay film in the traditional sense, but with so many drag stars from Ru's shows popping up alongside a few cameos from well known out gay actors, I figured it earns a spot on this blog anyway. The whole thing is completely over the top, packed with GenZ slang, loud flashy visuals, and humor that's constantly winking at you knowing how ridiculous it is. Going in you'd assume it's meant to be a laugh riot, and a lot of critics online seem to be eating it up, but I just couldn't get into it at all. I've never really been someone who vibes with campy silly stuff like this, so honestly my reaction doesn't surprise me one bit. The setup follows Tess and DeeDee, two low level stewardesses who sneak onto the fancy Glamazonian E...
Within first few minutes after he kills one of his male lovers, our protagonist tells us how he is dealing with issues of lust and killing and he can’t control it. He comes as Nick to Berlin and rents a room from Philipp. Philipp loves his charm and good looks and also introduced him to his best friend Lily. Clearly both of them are charmed by Nick and at the same time Nick systematically seduces them both. Lily with his charm and love and Philip with his friendship, although clearly Philipp has feelings for him. Nick is also sad about this whole thing because even though he genuinely likes both of these folks, he knows he will eventually have to kill them. In between all this, he cruises a gay man and kills him in second meeting and also follows a girl and kills her. As expected in the end he kills Philipp and Lily as well even though he deeply regrets it. And he is onwards to Paris as his next destination.
I am still not sure what the whole point of the film was and how and when did murdering someone and chaperoning their bodies through buildings and parks became that easy! He easily kills his gay guy target in the park. He carries Philipp’s body, undresses him and throws him in a lake and no one notices. He take Lily’s body also in the park. The cops come out as whimps in this whole situation. I can understand from Philipp and Lily’s point of view why they are charmed with Nick. There is nothing alarming about him. This is what anyone in this situation would do, but what is the film maker trying to tell us? To be cautious and careful of strangers? There is no back story on why does Nick go around killing innocent people who are just giving him love. Some insight into killer’s mind would have helped rather than just an absurd monologue in the beginning about “lust to kill” is “connected to certain star constellations”. The audience spends the film with two likable characters just to watch them get needlessly killed at the end. To be fair, the subtle homoeroticism and charm is very well played and all the actors do a very good job of what’s asked of them. Sadly the poor story takes away any credibility the actors brought into this film.
This film is cold and without any real motivation , reasoning or passion and that’s too bad. With a good charming starcast, and decent direction, it could have been so much more, only if everyone paid attention to what was the point of story. (4.5/10)
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