Subway (1985) – Film Review

Director: Luc Besson
Cast: Christopher Lambert, Isabelle Adjani, Richard Bohringer
Certificate: 15

By Sarah Morgan

Don’t get excited, sandwich fans – this movie is not a homage to the famous high street chain. Instead, it’s a slick French drama starring an actor who was once seemingly everywhere, but who we rarely see these days.

Christopher Lambert is almost a forgotten figure, but in the 1980s, he appeared in a number of hugely popular mainstream Hollywood hits, including Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, as well as Highlander and its sequel.

Amid making those titles, he returned to his native France to appear in writer-director Luc Besson’s breakthrough movie Subway.

“Luminous”

Lambert plays the bleached-blond central protagonist Fred, who we first meet when he’s hurtling through the streets of Paris in a small car, pursued by some burly chaps; all of them, including Fred, are in black tie.

It turns out that he has stolen some important documents from their gangster boss during a swanky party, and they’re determined to get them back. He goes to ground in the Paris Metro, finding shelter with a group of petty criminals who make their home in its secret tunnels and rooms long-forgotten by the people who work there.

To complicate matters, Fred has fallen in love with the gangster’s wife, played by the luminous Isabelle Adjani, who finds herself drawn to him too, for reasons she can’t quite explain.

Meanwhile, Fred forms a band with a group of musicians he discovers during his subterranean adventures, which suggests a new, rather different life may lie ahead.

“Wonderfully charismatic”

As you would expect from Besson, the man who brought the world Leon, The Big Blue and The Fifth Element, Subway is ultra-stylish, but it also manages to include plenty of substance too, introducing viewers to a world few would know existed – that of a literally underground culture populated by those living on the margins of society.

Lambert (who is about to return to the big screen in The Creeps, his first film for four years) is wonderfully charismatic in the lead role, while a sub-plot involving the railway police’s efforts to track down his new roller-skating thief friend is as intriguing as Fred’s own story.

Jean Reno and Jean-Hughes Anglade also appear in an enjoyable romp that, despite not being about sandwiches, is a delicious delight.

Sarah Morgan

Sarah Morgan studied film journalism at post-graduate level with the BFI and has been writing about TV and film for PA Media’s newspaper, magazine and new media customers since 1996. She’s also written for a wide range of other publications, both online and in print, including the book Offbeat and Intermission magazine, and is a regular contributor to the Talking Pictures TV podcast. When she isn’t watching movies, she’s collecting and reading vintage crime and horror paperback books or, for her sins, watching her beloved Sheffield Wednesday.

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