Transit [Blu-ray]

This is another quality action movie straight to DVD and Bluray released by the same people who recently released the brilliant dragon eyes!! Transit is a cool action thriller about a family that accidentally gets involved with violent criminals after a heist for $4million, Jim Caviezel (Outlander) is great as the lead the father of the family, there is some cool action and chase scenes as the story and the tension builds up to the big climax!! Certainly a cool thriller to catch, great budget for a small time release.

My partner has a thing for Jim Caviezel ever since he started working on the TV show `Person of Interest'. His brooding demeanour, chiselled looks and smart attire makes him a piece of eye candy that manages to distract from some of the more cheesy elements of the show. Can Caviezel bring this magic to `Transit', a film so bad it would take him running around naked shouting "Look at Me", to distract you from the low budget awfulness of this `thriller'?

Jim plays Nate, a man fresh out of jail after being caught out in a property sting. Is he really that bad? Not compared to the robbers who are on the run and have hidden their stash on top of Nate's car; a car that holds Nate and his family. `Transit' is part thriller, part family drama, all dreadful. Caviezel's film career is not at the heights of `The Passion of the Christ', but to see him sink this low is painful. The budget is far too low for the ambitions of the director Antonio Negret. You end up with many scenes being shot inside cars so that money does not need to be spent.

A lack of budget can impinge on the action, but that is no excuse for the script and the acting. Caviezel is reasonable as a father trying to protect his brood, but the bad guys are awful - straight from the casting for `Die Hard 6'. The script is also poor and leads the action in circles, the characters don't seem to know what they are doing and neither will you. For an action film there is far too much chat amongst people you do not care about, Nate's family are obnoxious and you ponder why he would try to save them. `Transit' is the type of straight to DVD film I no longer have the time or energy to bother watching, even my partner was not impressed and she got 90 minutes of The Cav.

The film does not overly benefit from BluRay, but it is the version to watch as a lot of the film is set during sunny days the colours look more vibrant in HD.

Sammy Stinker

Somehow, despite not being a fan of his, Caveizel keeps making films I end up enjoying. This is certainly one of them, starting with an armoured car robbery, and then changing to show us Caveizel's white collar ex-con trying to patch up the cracks in his family by taking them on a camping trip.
En-route, the robbers decide to stash their loot on his vehicle to avoid being caught with it at a roadblock, and the film suddenly accelerates into a tense chase movie, with hunter and prey losing each other several times.
The victory is in the casting. Caveizel's family are excellently played for innocence and sympathy, and Caveizel himself has rarely seemed more wounded, desperate or eager to make amends in a role as a man who just can't catch a break, even when he hasn't done anything wrong.
A chase movie's tension lives and dies on the quality of its villains, and here we get a great team.
Led by James Frain in hard-staring menacing form, all of the 4 bad folk are excellent, but Harold Perrineau adds extra threat with his hyper-edgy, untrusting and confrontational turn. You're never in any doubt that good luck and determination are the only things separating clan Caveizel from a nasty ending.
With twists of fate, brushes with the law, several tense chases and a nailbiting finale, it's a considerable notch above the usual 'family on the run from nutters' movie and well worth your time. It also features some excellent direction with inventive angles, and some acclaim-worthy stunt driving, with the bad guys' car being driven with the slick, dangerous skill of an angry panther waiting to pounce in several scenes.
Highly enjoyable.