Die Knastbrüder Manny und Buck flüchten aus einem Hochsicherheitsgefängnis für Schwerverbrecher in Alaska, wo sie ständig von dem sadistischen Gefängnisdirktor misshandelt werden. In einem unbeobachteten Augenblick springen sie kurzerhand auf vier aneinandergekoppelte Lokomotiven auf, die sie aus der weißen Hölle bringen sollen. Was sie nicht ahnen: Der Lokführer ist an einem Herzanfall gestorben. Nun rasen die vier Loks durch die Eiswüste Alaskas ...

"Ein Jahr nach "Maria's Lovers" bewies Andrej (Michalkov-)Kontschalowskij mit diesem Film sein Talent auch für action-orientierte Stoffe. So entstand ein packender, rasanter und knallharter Film nach einem Treatment der japanischen Kino-Legende Akira Kurosawa." (--- Prisma)

"RUNAWAY TRAIN is a reminder that the great adventures are great because they happen to people we care about. That was true of "The African Queen," and of "Stagecoach," and of "The Seven Samurai," three movies that would otherwise seem to have little in common. And it is also true of this tale of two desperate convicts on a train that is hurtling through the snows of Alaska.
The movie stars Jon Voight and Eric Roberts, two actors with dramatically different styles. Voight is always internalized and moody; Roberts has a collection of verbal and physical tics that are usually irritating, and are sometimes meant to be. Here they are both correctly cast as two convicts in a maximum-security prison in Alaska who escape through a drain tunnel and then blunder onto the train that takes them on their hell-bound mission. ...
RUNAWAY TRAIN is based on an original screenplay by the Japanese master Akira Kurosawa, whose best movies use action as a means of studying character. ...
The action sequences in the movie are stunning. Frequently in recent movies, I've seen truly spectacular stunts and not been much excited, because I knew they were stunts. All I could appreciate was their smoothness of execution. In RUNAWAY TRAIN, as the characters try to climb along the sides of the ice-covered locomotives, as the train crashes through barriers and other trains, as men dangle from helicopters and try to kill the convicts, there is such a raw, uncluttered desperation in the feats that they put slick Hollywood stunts to shame.
The ending of the movie is astonishing in its emotional impact. I will not describe it. All I will say is that Konchalovsky has found the perfect visual image to express the ideas in his film. Instead of a speech, we get a picture, and the picture says everything that needs to be said." (--- Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times (1986))