The action thriller, which also stars Jon Voight, Rebecca De Mornay and Eric Roberts (in his only Oscar-nominated performance to date), tells in breathtaking images the escape of the two prison inmates Manny (Voight) and Buck (Roberts) and their breakneck escape from the sadistic guard Ranken (John P. Ryan) on a driverless train across Alaska.
It is probably one of the very few Cannon productions which even the pope of critics Roger Ebert went into raptures:
“[RUNAWAY TRAIN] is a reminder that the great adventures are great because they happen to people we care about.”