Crackerjack 2 aka Hostage Train (1997)

This is one I'd been meaning to cover for a long time. It feels like one the site was made for, so the fact that we're this far in and haven't done it is a bit of an oversight. To rectify that, I started with a podcast on it, episode 158, with guest Todd Liebenow from Forgotten Filmcast; and now we're circling back to get it a review here. This is also a Superfecta Film, as Bulletproof, Comeuppance, and the Video Vacuum have all covered this as well.

Crackerjack 2 has Judge Reinhold taking over from Thomas Ian Griffith as the lead. Wait, what? Not only that, he's dating Carol Alt. Still sufficiently cop on the edge, when he finds out the train of rich people Alt is hosting is the target of a terrorist group, he needs to do everything he can to stop them. As the fly in the ointment, he's going to grimace, awe-shucks, and neck-break his way to victory.

What else is there to say? What else isn't there to say? This is everything you'd want from a Judge Reinhold-led Die Hard rip-off loosely connect sequel to a made-for-TV Die Hard rip-off, but what does that mean? Did you even know you wanted that? And if you did, what would your expectations be? Yet I guess this meets them? Here's a good metaphor. In the mid-2000s I went to a camp in Maine with some friends, and one of them brought a can of cheese whiz. At the local grocery store I'd picked up a container of raspberry jelly rolls--or "jelly death rolls" as someone there called them. I don't remember what prompted it, whether it was a dare, or I was trying to gross someone out, but I unrolled one of those jelly death rolls, sprayed in some cheese whiz, rolled it back up, and ate it. What I got was two tastes that didn't mingle--the jelly death roll was one thing, the cheese was another. That's what this movie is, cheese whiz sprayed into a jelly death roll, and while it doesn't work, the mere concept of it is enough to get some laughs like I did.

Let's start with Reinhold. What makes him so fantastic in Fast Times as Ridgemont High is the same thing that makes him cheese whiz sprayed into a jelly death roll here. The grimacing and funny faces, the awe-shucks demeanor as he's breaking someone's neck or fighting them with no pants on--more on that later--but then trying to turn it into cop on the edge and make it work. It's not just that they're deconstructing the cop on the edge or the Die Hard rip-off fly in the ointment, or trying to turn it on its ear, it's like some molecular gastronomist trying to make a classic dish out of ingredients we wouldn't expect, and I guess in that world if it works you get a Michelin star, but here you get Crackerjack 2. And I guess the question is, do the ingredients that we wouldn't expect to work, work? When Reinhold fights a guy with no pants on, he's in briefs--not boxer briefs, but like tighty-whities--with a shirt that comes down over them. That look never works, but does it work in this case? Is that what we needed from a Reinhold-led actioner? And then when it ends, with the guy trying to stab him, and Reinhold dodging and guiding the blade into his CRT computer monitor, which causes the guy to be electrocuted, is that an octopus lolly pop, or a deep-fried Hollandaise sauce on a deconstructed eggs Benedict? Maybe, right?

Back to that idea of men being naked from the waist down, what is it about that that's so off-putting? And yes, Reinhold is wearing tighty-whities, but the image is roughly the same with the T-shirt draped down over his legs. Is it just because I generally don't find men physically attractive? Because with women I do find that look to be very sexy, but I also think it's more conducive to a woman's shape. Is that it, if Judge Reinhold were more curvy and less boxy like a guy, would it have worked? And the thing is, I'm not saying it didn't work, in the context of this film and what a Judge Reinhold-led Die Hard rip-off should be, I almost feel like it does, and maybe the knife through the CRT monitor electrocution is the ingredient my cheese whiz and jelly death roll stunt was missing to pull the whole dish together. So I'm watching something that's off-putting, something that my entire life experience on this planet has told me is off-putting, and I almost want to avert my eyes, but I see it through, and when the scene ends, it's like John Wick in the fourth movie when Laurence Fishburne asks him if he's ready, and he just says "yeah." Judge Reinhold as the lead in a Die Hard rip-off sequel to a Die Hard rip-off fighting a guy while he's got no pants on, culminating in the baddie stabbing the CRT monitor of a computer and getting electrocuted? Yeah.

There are so many other elements of the movie that I could mention, but do they matter? Like the Eurotrash baddies, complete with the femme fatale in shiny pants? We've seen it so many times before, it's not worth devoting any time to. Carol Alt as the leading guy's lady, we could swap her out for any number of models from that time, like Kathy Ireland, and it would've worked as well--not that Carol Alt was bad or anything, it's just that the character didn't have much more going on. Even the basic premise, Die Hard in a train tunnel to get rich people to give the terrorists their money, was pretty contrived, including the money being put on a CD-R and Reinhold getting his hands on it. None of it matters the way that Judge Reinhold as the lead does, and I was trying to think of other names we could use today if we wanted to remake this, but I'm not sure if they would work. Johnny Galecki? Jason Biggs? Topher Grace? Do any of them have the Reinhold-ian sensibility that makes this work in spite of its cheese whiz and jelly death roll construction--or rather, not in spite of, but because of. This might be this kind of one-off unicorn in the low-budget action world, a strange alchemy that can never be duplicated.

Finally, look at that outfit Reinhold is wearing there. How old is he supposed to be? 18? That's what I wore to parties in college, only my jeans were wider-legged. Did the costume designer go to a skateboard park at the time for inspiration? And the thing is, this is pre the tighty-whities scene, it's like the amuse bouche at the Michelin-starred molecular gastronomy restaurant, maybe a menu that you can eat, and you're like "this is going to be a fun experience--Reinhold dressed like a kid 25 years younger than himself, I can't wait to see where it goes from here!" And then the server comes to your table 20 minutes later and drops off a plate of Reinhold pantsless fighting a baddie and you're like "maybe I should've told them I have dietary restrictions so they could've replaced this with something else," but hey, they have that Michelin star for a reason, right? And by the time the credits roll, when you're getting up to leave, it's like "I don't know what I just ate, but it was kinda good. At least it was a fun, unique experience, better than just going to the usual restaurants we go to." And then, best of all, because it's on Tubi, the server lets everyone know the meal was on the house.

And maybe that's the ultimate decider with this. The molecular gastronomy restaurant is a lot more fun when it's free, and since you can get this free on Tubi, I think it's a no-brainer. What this should be or shouldn't be, I can't say, but it is what it is--perhaps the only time using that expression is apt--and because it is, it's an experience worth having. And don't forget to check out the podcast episode we did on this, number 158 in the archives, where we try to make further sense of things.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119317

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