AfroPixFlix:

Many people will get frustrated with this genre-buster despite its backdrop of splendid Spanish settings. Anyone familiar with director Jim Jarmusch's MYSTERY TRAIN knows he goes minimal on plot, but hefty on characters. Consider it a journey in the footsteps of a mysterious man encountering a bevy of international eccentrics. They have their own passions they want to discuss with him, but the sartorial, stoic sojourner is all about business. Only, we just don't know what business it is. Lead actor Isaach de Bankole, who did a decent job playing a Cameroonian immigrant in OTOMO, has no more than maybe a dozen speaking lines and is the personification of restraint. Recommended for viewers with patience and a penchant for weirdos in beautiful settings. By the time you discover the links between the people and the vague anticlimactic end, you may reach the limits of your own (remote) control.

Kemble:

Being a big fan of Jarmusch's previous films, I came in wanting to really love this film. It is definitely a difficult movie dealing with repetition with variations on the theme. I appreciate what he is trying to do here with the dream-like state a hitman deals with in the detachment of his job. I just didn't find it enjoyable.

Peter Olafson:

This movie-as-puzzle is at once artful and oh-so-pretentious. Jarmusch is at his best when he has a story to tell, as in Dead Man. Here, he's supervising a short subject stretched through repetition to nearly two hours. A man with an impassive face sits down at a cafe and orders two espressos. Eventually, someone joins him. He's asked if he speaks Spanish. After a pause, he says no. His guest holds forth briefly on an esoteric topic that suggests the meaninglessness of life. They exchange matchboxes. From his box, the man removes a bit of paper containing an alphanumeric code, puts it in his mouth and washes it down with his coffee. A black helicopter, a naked girl and a scene of the man performing tai chi, lying awake on a bed, walking city streets or visiting an art museum often can be found in close proximity. And there you have roughly 90 to 95 percent of the movie. At first, the style is bewitching and the man's seeming calm hypnotic -- throwing into relief the world around him (which is photographed beautifully). But the drawn-out method obscures and finally trivializes any larger point. We're supposed to assemble a deeper understanding of our world because of what the impassive man is told by a stranger on a train?

f17be2436f:

Artfully this film hits the mark. As for entertainment...a dead miss. Visually stunning and very stylized yet mind numbingly slow. I'm not a fan of the director nor do I think I've seen any of his other films. I'd say interesting and open to interpretation, very metaphorical, and allows the viewer to make whatever they want of the experience. For me not my cup of tea and not what I look for in a film, and I do enjoy many indie films. To each their own, just don't go in expecting anything nearly as cool as the previews.

woollams812:

In the short film included in the "Bonus" section of this DVD, Jim Jarmusch remarks that the unknown, or material that remains undisclosed is most interesting to him. He states that while he has heard lots of music and seen lots of movies, what excites him the most is the idea of all the movies and music that he has yet to hear. It is this sense of "what is not known" that drives this film. Like its main character, we float from person to person and collect the material they provide us. This is not an exciting movie; instead, it presents a truly episodic plot where we glide from day to day, person to person and item to item until we reach the place we need to be. Jarmusch's film is a curious distraction from a world where we can know everything at anytime.

WideStance:

Jim Jarmusch trying hard to be "Jim Jarmusch." Boring, pretentious and unbelievably juvenile.

tick22:

a film you have to pay attention to as so much of what is said, is reused with new meaning later on. All the characters seem to interconnect as a bit of knowledge is passed from person to person til the end, where it all comes together. Yes, this movie is slow, yes, this movie takes it time to look at what is around the characters and yes, some of the guest stars are awesome for their short time on screen..

eqf 1351985:

I like strange movies but this is far from my cup of tea. Good lord! I still have no idea of what was going on!

edmund:

I agree with the people who hated this movie because I hate this movie too. I think it sucks because it is so slow and nothing happens throughout the movie, except for the ending where the main lead kills Bill Murray with a guitar thread. There are some things I don't understand about the movie. Why does the main character have to exchange match boxes with several people and what are those cryptic letters on the piece of paper inside those match boxes? All that trouble tio kill one man? Cme on now. I am really, really beginning to hate French films.