

The Train

As the Allied forces approach Paris in August 1944, German Colonel Von Waldheim is desperate to take all of France's greatest paintings to Germany. He manages to secure a train to transport the valuable art works even as the chaos of retreat descends upon them. The French resistance however wants to stop them from stealing their national treasures but have received orders from London that they are not to be destroyed. The station master, Labiche, is tasked with scheduling the train and making it all happen smoothly but he is also part of a dwindling group of resistance fighters tasked with preventing the theft. He and others stage an elaborate ruse to keep the train from ever leaving French territory.
"Keep your eyes open. Your horizon's about to be broadened."
The train has not just one train, it has 2 trains!
At the end of the film, we see an exhausted nazi colonel who, after knowing he has lost, attempts to talk his way into a moral victory. The Colonel expresses his appreciation of the priceless art he has stolen and argues that though he lost the war, Labiche fought for something he will never understand. Labiche looks at the 12 bodies that the Nazis massacred; he then kills the colonel. Labiche knows the lives sacrificed for that art, nobody understands the price of those paintings better than him. 5 stars.