Confidant he made the right decision in not attempting a possible freight-derailing emergency stop, Tom is placed on administrative leave pending an internal investigation. There isn’t a tomorrow morning station departure for the couple to hide behind now. Forced to wait out the pensive situation at home, he and Megan must confront their strained relationship. Absent any light at the end of the tunnel, Megan decides to leave Tom — her packed bags already positioned at the front door.
The trainman gets an unexpected last minute reprieve when the now-foster child runaway Davey pays an angry visit to his home demanding an explanation as to why the engineer killed his mother. Everyone’s emotions purged, the despondent Megan decides that she and her inadequate husband can secretly raise the orphaned boy because he needs a family almost as much as she desperately wants one. Tom agrees to the terms when it’s made clear that she’ll go through with her plans to leave him if he doesn’t go along with her newly revised, self-indulgent scheme. It’s enough to make your heart swell. From nausea. Megan’s heart-tugging terminal condition mechanically functions strictly as a plot device meant to nullify her reprehensible ploy for affirmation before her ticket gets punched.
Rails is an underwhelming directorial debut for the rookie Eastwood. Its paint-by-numbers style and TV movie tone suggest an artist too conservative or inexperienced to dispense with clichés and contrivances. Bacon (one of his generation’s best) and Harden give restrained performances that leave them unscathed from collateral damage resulting from a puzzling blended-family plot content with taking the easy way out. Stark accidentally puts Davey’s mother out of her misery and then his wife covertly harbors the boy in their home without any regard for his young life in the context of the outside world. It’s made clear to the Starks and to us: people are looking for the missing youth.
Taking juvenile welfare issues not even half the distance traveled in last year’s Gone Baby Gone, director Ben Affleck’s labored inaugural effort at least had the daringness to challenge audiences to contemplate larger family preservation issues related to child protection. Rails doesn’t possess the courage to even pose such questions for consideration. It’s not embarrassing, nor is it thought provoking.
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