Death Train

Did You Know?

• The Region 2 UK DVD release lacks English subtitles for Russian dialogue, which are present on TV broadcasts, VHS, and the Region 1 American DVD.
• The film was released on VHS in the US as Detonator by New Line Home Video in 1993.
• Brosnan described the film as 'boy's own adventure' involving running along train tops and shooting guns.

Plot

Dissident Russian General Konstantin Benin, aided by a German nuclear physicist, plots to restore the Soviet Union by placing a nuclear bomb on a train bound for Iraq. The train is controlled by mercenaries led by Alex Tierney. Malcolm Philpott, head of the United Nations Anti-Crime Organisation, assigns field operative Mike Graham and analyst Sabrina Carver to stop the train and its deadly cargo as the international balance of power reaches a crisis point.

Novel

Alistair MacLean left unfinished storylines at his death in 1987, which Alistair MacNeill expanded into novels: Death Train and Night Watch. One review noted that MacLean's heroes typically rely on their own wits, whereas Death Train's three agents frequently call for help. In 1991 a Warwickshire Council trading standards department sued the publisher for misleading advertising, partly because MacLean's name appeared in larger type than MacNeill's on the book cover. The publisher was fined £6,250 in September, having sold 355,000 copies of MacNeill's first two novels. When a third MacNeill novel, Time of the Assassins, appeared in late 1991, the cover art was altered so that MacNeill's name matched MacLean's in size.

Locations

USA Pictures, an offshoot of the USA Network, bought the film rights and produced Death Train as the first of four pictures intended for US television but with possible theatrical release elsewhere. It was Pierce Brosnan's first project after his wife's death. The film was shot entirely on location in Slovenia and at Jadran Film Studios in Zagreb, Croatia, as a co-production between Yorkshire International Films Ltd. and Jadran Film. Filming finished by June 1992, during the Yugoslav Wars. Brosnan noted that the hotel was overrun by soldiers and that the combat outfits resembled those of the Croatian Army, making the shoot difficult.