From the Spanish word malpaso comes the foreboding English phrase, “bad step.” For audiences, this translation may not hint at any degree of looming fate. In the nepotistic case of movie director Alison Eastwood, daughter of picture icon Clint Eastwood, it signifies an unimaginative crossroad in her circuitous artistic journey from Playboy pinup to film forewoman.
Under the tutelage of Malpaso Productions, her pop’s film production company, the 36-year-old part time actress (Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, 1997), model, and fashion designer pumps mishandled steam into her first directorial feature. A wannabe Lifetime Network grade assimilation, Rails & Ties isn’t so much a discomforting excursion as it is one embarking to that Godforsaken place that every novice storyteller passes through sooner or later, but none desire to end up — Nowhere-ville. Principals Kevin Bacon and Marcia Gay Harden — both of whom worked under the elder Eastwood’s sure directorial hand in Mystic River (2003) — look to be offering some sort of artistic indemnification for favors past by coming on board with the fledgling next-generation Eastwood at the helm.
Bacon is Tom Stark, a solemn, long-time veteran conductor who runs passenger trains up and down the west coast. Having already battled cancer into remission twice, Tom’s 42-year-old wife Megan (Marcia Gay Harden) is now in stage four. The third time is not the charm. Fifteen years deep into their childless marriage, Megan’s done fighting the “good fight.” Tom isn’t. She wants to concede, ready to make the most of the rest of her days. Tom doesn’t. He’s stoically hanging in with their daily struggle to live as loving husband and wife by pushing her to repetitiously continue seeing doctors, take medicines, and undergo alternative treatments. Megan wants to live her life. If only Tom would stop long enough to oblige.
In the form of twisted steel, fate pays the couple a bizarre visit when Tom unavoidably hits a car stopped on the tracks in front of a train he’s steering. Behind the automobile’s wheel is Laura Danner (Bonnie Root), a depressed, alcoholic, pill-popping mother to an 11-year-old son named Davey (Miles Heizer). She’s done fighting, too. Her unwitting child at her side, she’s chosen this final parking spot intentionally. Train a'coming, the boy tries to pull his unresponsive mother to safety. For the soon to be orphan youngster, the locomotive arrives as scheduled.
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