Tunnel (2002 Video) User Reviews

Ugly one!

[kumindac · 3/10 · 23 March 2003]

Consider "I Know All" Action hero is lighting a cigarette in the darkness. While tries to hide/seek the Bad guys. (Probably to give a signal light to say here I am coming)

That's one of the 100 scenes you can laugh at. (I think the movie should in the Comedy category.)

Awful directing, awful script, Bad Acting, Cheap special effects. (They used a tunnel so they can hide there acting in darkness)

3 out of 10 (that also for making me laugh looking at those pathetic mistakes)

Dull

[hengir · 5/10 · 8 March 2008]

Well it is set in a tunnel for most of the time with our hero, played by the director Daniel Baldwin, running around trying to get back a hoard of diamonds from the villain played by Kim Coates. The low budget meant that things like two explosions shutting off each end of the tunnel were never shown, There is a stationary train in the tunnel but not much is made of it and as the villains have gassed all the passengers there are no crowd scenes of mayhem and panic. The enclosed area of the action does not give a gripping, claustrophobic atmosphere which it could do but just reveals the lowness of the budget. What you are left with are dull characters, tame gun play and not much of a story. So paltry is the script that in it our hero vows to quit smoking if he gets out alive, a plot point that is as old as the movies. Not even the talented Kim Coates as the loathsome villain or a passel of good looking women raise the film from mediocrity. Dull.

You'll feel like you've seen it all before, and done better.

[tarbosh22000 · 4/10 · 21 September 2023]

Usually when a prisoner has to be transported somewhere, something bad happens. As we always say, never transport prisoners. Just leave them where they are. Unfortunately, when a baddie named Geary (Coates) has to be moved from one place to another by train, his criminal compatriots come to his rescue and they all escape into an underground tunnel. They're looking for some stolen diamonds, and only a man named Seale (Baldwin) can flush them all out. He's trapped down there with a woman named Sarah (Theriault), and together they have to stop the bad guys, find the diamonds, and get out alive. Who will escape THE TUNNEL?

Oh, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974), what have you wrought? While a lot of The Tunnel, naturally enough, takes place in a dimly (i.e. Poorly) lit tunnel, a large section also takes place on the train which is transporting the Geary character. Every time we watch a movie like Death Train (2003), Hijack (1998), Derailed (2002), Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (1995), or Evasive Action (1998), we have to wonder why filmmakers, low budget action filmmakers especially, thought trains were so awesome hot and cool. This isn't the 1830's anymore. Most people over the age of three aren't wowed by choo-choos. So why fully-grown adults are continually making these train movies, presumably with the intention that audiences are, yet again, going to breathlessly exclaim, "Whoa, Cooooolll!" when they see a film set on a train, we have no freakin' clue.

So, with that said, we have to conclude that star and director Daniel Baldwin can do better than this. We know - or, at least we suspect - that he's capable of directing stronger material than The Tunnel. So that's why it's so disappointing that The Tunnel is comprised of more mediocre Die Hard-isms that bring nothing new, interesting, or exciting to the table.

It all starts off promisingly enough, with a car chase/blowup and some impressive stunt work. We get a fairly interesting back story to Dan's character at the outset but it never pays off or maintains its initial promise. Just when you think the movie is going to continue in this direction, it quickly devolves into a boring, cliche-ridden slog.

While Kim Coates always puts a lot of energy into his baddie roles, which are most of them, and Baldwin has a few charismatic moments, most of the tunnel sequences are very poorly lit. If you can't see what's going on, the dialogue descends into the sort of stuff you've heard a million times before, and the plot does likewise, things become real dull real fast. One might see the box for The Tunnel at their local video store and then just pass it right on by.

There's a certain bleak Canadian-ness to it and by the end of the ninety-five minute running time (gotta make sure you have those extra five minutes), this tunnel has collapsed.

So, as excited as we were to see the second film Daniel Baldwin directed after Fall: The Price of Silence (2001), we have to say it was a letdown. The Tunnel is inessential viewing, but you're unlikely to come across it anyway. If you do, there's really no need to see it. You'll feel like you've seen it all before, and done better.

Do yourself a favor and gouge out your eyes

[statsweasel · 1/10 · 3 October 2002]

This is perhaps the worst movie I have ever seen, and I have seen well over 300 movies in my lifetime. The acting atrocious, the only bright spot seems to be judging the anatomical prowess of the female castmembers. After watching this movie, it is suggested that the viewer not operate heavy machinery or go driving for a period of at least 24 hours. Also a bottle of Valium would be recommended so you don't feel so bad for the 100 wasted minutes of your life. The plot is nothing original, the dialog excruciating, and even the weapons seem sub-par. Do yourself a favor and go to your local Blockbuster and burn whatever copies they have of this horrid film.

The most truly awful amateurish feature yet.

[DocFilm · 1/10 · 9 January 2006]

To start out with, the script is immitative and inane. The characters are shallow and formulaic. The plot has arbitrary reversals and non sequitors. Baldwin's direction is terrible -- these actors could do better on their own. The jokes and wisecracks fall flat. The shoot out scenes are clumsy and incredible. Baldwin directs himself as the wise courageous hero but spends most of his time in power struggles with women, particularly with the caricatured repressedwoman in their tunnel team who is always asking for and denying reassurance. The conductor suffer from absurd incompetence, being unable to effectively employ a pistol he has come by.Anomalies: a hooded man bristleing with guns stalks through a railroad car, startling people. The next time we see them they are going about their business sitting in their seats, talking, eating, reading, knitting.In the New York subways folks sometimes come on the train to do some musical or dramatic number --- maybe that's what they thought the "happening" was.

Movie Realm Review of Tunnel by NeCRo of Movierealm

[Anticriticdotnet · 27 May 2002]

Movie Title - Tunnel Date of review - 5/26/02 Year of movie - 2000

Stars - Daniel Baldwin, Kim Coates

May Contain Spoilers

NeCRo's Rating - 5 skulls out of 10

Plot

Well, 90 million dollars worth of diamonds are stolen by Kim Coates and in some weird DA deal that would never really happen Kim agrees to lead the authorities to the diamonds. On the way to them though he takes the whole train hostage and it's up to Daniel Baldwin to stop him.

Acting

Atrocious aside from Kim Coates. Why on earth has Kim made more than 1 movie with Daniel Baldwin? He is a good actor in my book, but why does he stick with Daniel? Probably to make himself look better although over time it will only damage him. Kim plays the terrorist/diamond thief and as usual is pretty fun to watch. I saw him first in the movie X-change (with yet another Baldwin albeit a good one named Stephen) and he was awesome as the bad guy in that. Don't even get me started on Daniel Baldwin, he is truly up for grabs as one of the worst actors who keeps getting work. His facial expressions and odd physical movements that he does while acting do nothing more than make him look stupid. Let alone a vocal delivery that makes my friend's mute dad look like Tom Hanks. He attempts to do different acting styles all the time, but fails utterly. Him and William Baldwin are the banes of the Baldwin family. William has kind of gone underground and pretty much just enjoyed his ride while it lasted, but not Dan, no no, he seems to always have 2 or 3 movies on the shelf when I go to rent a movie with more on the way. Sorry for the rant, but basically Dan does nothing more than his usual crap in this movie. Why I keep watching his movies is beyond me, maybe I just want to see how bad he can get. Ok ok so his acting cracks me up, leave me alone.

Violence and Gore

Magical guns that kill people without inflicting wounds and fights that look like they were choreographed by Joe the pig farmer. When the violence does come you usually miss it due to laughing from what happens in between the violence.

T&A Nudity Factor

I have yet to see an actress get naked in a Daniel Baldwin movie, this one follows in suit. Not even gratuitous nudity could save this one.

Overall View of the movie (review)

In his directing debut, Daniel Baldwin thinks that he's acted in so many crap movies that he can make his own movie and that it will rise above all other B movies. Sadly for him, this movie is much worse than anything he just plain acted in. This movie was just bad from the start. When you have gunfights where people get shot, but there's no wounds then you know something's wrong. Baldwin thoroughly does everything you can do wrong in a B movie and if this movie wasn't so laughably bad I would've probably given it a 2 or 3. That is real low for me, but that would only be if I truly didn't have a good time. I was having too much fun pointing out to myself all the weird and funny stuff that kept coming up. Also Baldwin's body movements, reactions to people and stimuli, and just plain overall demeanor were just weird, but you can't help but laugh.

As I said in the section before this, I really like Kim Coates, the man with a woman's name. He is a very intense actor and is best at evil and nasty people. Why a man of this caliber follows Daniel around can probably never be explained. Maybe he hopes to get friendly with Daniel so he can come to a family dinner and talk to Alec about future ventures, at least that is purely logical. If so then he has a good plan, but if you're going to act with a Baldwin then go with Stephen cause he is at least really good. I still remember the first time I saw Daniel Baldwin was in his best performance to date and that is in John Carpenter's Vampires as a vampire hunter named Montoya. He fit the part perfectly and after that I thought for sure he was able to make good movies. About 5 or 6 Daniel Baldwin flicks later... I now watch them to see if they can really get consecutively worse. They still entertain to a point....but you have to be like me and just really be into movies. The average movie goer would turn off any of Daniel's newer movies in about 5 minutes. Does that mean I have an advanced movie taste? hardly, I just can stand very bad movies and find them humorous.

I have yet to really talk about Tunnel yet as Daniel makes me very blabby, but what is there to say really? There is nothing original or special about this movie at all. It seems as though so little money was spent on this movie that they would've been better off to just add the funds that went into this into another movie to make it better. I'm guessing they got Kim for either free or very cheap (IE: reasons above, hehe) and I also see other actors from Daniel's other endeavors in here too so you can guess they all want to tag along with him. He must have as much charisma as he does physical girth to be able to have people follow him.

Overall, please do not view this expecting any form of quality. If you are a die hard Baldwin family fan, then check out Stephen's new movie Dead Awake and see a VERY good movie in my opinion. Stay away from Daniel Baldwin until he either gives up acting or magically changes his whole approach to movies and makes movies of caliber. Tunnel is below normal action fare, the fights are horribly bad and the gunfights are about as entertaining as watching Baldwin talk about children....

NeCRo

Poor doesn't describe this

[youngsteve · 1/10 · 19 August 2009]

I haven't reviewed anything on here for quite awhile, but after having the misfortune to sit through this rubbish masquarading as entertainment I had to put forward my thoughts.

Normally, however bad something is, there is one redeeming part, whether it is an actor who was okay, a scene that was passable, an attractive cast member, or a general feelgood moment. Unfortunately, that isn't true here, as the film starts of atrociously, with a ridiculous shootout, which was so poor, I thought it was a practice, & two halfwits, otherwise known as the boys in blue chatting beside a school.

One of these idiots was Daniel Baldwin, who not only starred in this, but also actually Directed this garbage, & unlike his brothers cannot act for toffee. Not that he was on his own here, as everyone in it seemed to belong to the acting school of a trained chimp.

Luckily, certainly for me, I only watched an hour of this masterpiece, as the DVD wouldn't work, & was probably made by the same fools who produced this. So if you have nothing to do but watch paint dry do watch this as it is just as boring, & ideal for getting rid of unwanted guests.

Yuck

[franssanders · 1/10 · 12 June 2021]

I have seen very many bad and ok-ish movies, but this one takes the cherry. Wow, a bad story, horrible acting, cheap "stunts". Not sure whether this was in Canada or the US as crown attorneys and VIA rail were there but so was a reference to the FBI. Only small good point was Janine Theriault who is originally from Yarmouth Nova Scotia, so a local gal. Seriously advise not to watch this unless you want the worst movie you have seen look good compared to this one.

bad B

[SnoopyStyle · 3/10 · 29 December 2022]

Policeman Seale (Daniel Baldwin) loses his partner during a shootout. Geary (Kim Coates) is captured, but he is given a deal. He has the location of $90 millions in stolen diamonds. Seale barges his way into the recovery expedition.

First and foremost, this needs to explain the train in the most reasonable way. They have to expect an ambush to free Geary. The premise is silly without a scrap of logic. The actors are fine. Kim Coates is always a good crazy villain. Daniel Baldwin is fully entrenched in his B-movie acting mode. The others are fine B-movie actors. This is a B all the way through.

Mayhem in the subway.

[mg132774 · 10/10 · 6 March 2002]

This may be what would be described as a "guilty pleasure", lots of explosions, wise cracking characters, close calls, villains dying in gruesome and unique ways. The action does not let up, so there is no time to discover plot hole and continuity issues. And just when you think you have seen the last crisis another one pops up. If your motivation for seeing a movie is to be entertained, to suspend disbelief and to escape for 90 minutes, this is a great flick!

Rated "F" for Failure to represent a movie.

[ackerrw · 28 June 2001]

I have seen some bad movies in the past. They were mostly foreign films with terrible actors and either dubbed or subtitled. This film could easily fit in that same category. It had a decent story line...that is...a large diamond heist and the crooks figuring a way to get away with the diamonds and completely covering their tracks. That's the only good thing about the movie...the story line. ALL the actors were complete failures. The lighting director must have been an intern. The screen play writer left so many holes in the script that the train (so called) trapped in the tunnel could have driven through. If you rent movies for $3.99 ea., spend your money on a different movie and consider yourself lucky you didn't waste your money like I did.

Good Movie

[chris_K_jr · 10/10 · 28 November 2001]

This movie was great, not only was it supose to be a serious movie it gave us all something to laugh about. The movie was great and well Daniel Baldwin is still cute even though it took him 5 minutes to grab his gun, and the roll well that was priceless. I am telling you if you want an interesting movie watch TUNNEL you'll love it. AND ALL YOU OUT THERE DON'T DIS BALDWIN. He's the best. So is the movie.

One of the worst action movies I've seen in a long time

[Wizard-8 · 16 June 2009]

Unlike the majority of Canadian films that are made, this is one that freely gives signs that the movie is actually taking place in Canada. We get Canadian license plates, there is a "VIA" railway train seen, there is a character that speaks French, and there is a reference to a "Crown Attorney" (the Canadian equivalent of a District Attorney). However, there is a reference to the death penalty (which Canada hasn't had for decades), and a reference to the possibility of the F.B.I. (which are American) being called in. Oops!

Actually, this inability of the movie of firmly setting where it's actually taking place was one of the least of the problems I had with the movie. To begin with, it's cheap - VERY cheap. We get stuff like bullets being fired at cars and no bullet holes appearing, and when the train is sealed in the tunnel, we HEAR the explosions at each end of the tunnel but don't actually see the explosions or the piled wreckage at each end of the tunnel.

The next problem was with Baldwin's performance. He seems to be phoning it in for the most part - and phoning it in long distance. When he's not phoning it in, he acts so smarmy, so obnoxious, that you will actually root for the villains. But even worse than his performance is his direction. With the limited budget, he resorts to cost-cutting measures like frequent close-ups and stuff happening offscreen. Also, there is almost no action in the first hour of the movie, and the little action that's there and in the rest of the movie is directed by an unbelievable lack of passion and excitement. He seems to think that simply firing a gun is exciting.

If the disastrous end results had been unintentionally amusing, there might be a reason to see this movie. But except for the dispatch of the final bad guy, you'll watch the rest of the movie in silent agony. This movie actually provokes physical pain. Avoid!

Action (and unintentional Comedy) at its best!

[dan_slack1 · 10/10 · 12 January 2006]

I would tend to disagree with all the users who have rated this film as awful. Granted, the plot is not very original (yet it hasn't been done before in this way...), the acting is...well, not the greatest, and the gadgets/weapons are very basic.

These flaws no way deteriorate from the enjoyment of the feature however. One can describe the lack-lustre acting as comical as opposed to poor, and weaponry laughable in contrast to basic and the plot has enough twists and turns to keep you interested throughout.

Going into the film, I was rather sceptical as i had bought it for 75p in a sale, but I am glad I did, as it was one of the best 75p's I have spent!! Great film, definitely worth a watch!! Everyone is bound to get something from this film.

Rated "F" for Failure to represent a movie.

[ackerrw · 28 June 2001]

I have seen some bad movies in the past. They were mostly foreign films with terrible actors and either dubbed or subtitled. This film could easily fit in that same category. It had a decent story line...that is...a large diamond heist and the crooks figuring a way to get away with the diamonds and completely covering their tracks. That's the only good thing about the movie...the story line. ALL the actors were complete failures. The lighting director must have been an intern. The screen play writer left so many holes in the script that the train (so called) trapped in the tunnel could have driven through. If you rent movies for $3.99 each, spend your money on a different movie and consider yourself lucky you didn't waste your money like I did.