When the Magic 120-sided Die rolled the number for Northwest Frontier, I was excited.

Finally a war film about Lewis and Clark.

People my age growing up in Seattle learned a ton about Lewis and Clark. People my age growing up in Seattle learned a ton about Lewis and Clark in

elementary school and I still believe the Northwest Passage will be found one

day. I was never a good student.

Imagine my confusion as the film faded up to reveal the Sandy Northwest frontier of British

India.

And while I may have been confused, I wasn't disappointed because while Northwest Frontier is a film that dives into the tensions between colonizer and the colonized, those ideas are contained mostly inside a train car fleeing toward Calipur, which

means you could and probably should title this movie, The Train Escape. This film's characters would fit nicely into an Agatha Christie mystery.

We've got our young Prince Kishan under the protection of British Army Captain Scott.

With them as Mrs. Wyatt, played by the great Lauren Bacall, whose voice you could finish sand a dining room table with.

There's Mr. Peters, the arms dealer whose profession makes him loath by all sides, and British

expat Mr. Bertie, who loves an underdog.

Throughout the film we aren't sure what to make of Shifty Dutch journalist Peter Van Leiden, which is exactly

the opposite of how we feel about Gentle Gupta, our train driver and Eternal Optimist.

It seems like it would be a lot of fun and it really is when we're smashing locomotives through walls,

fixing broken rails and fending off rebels.

But there are some real dark elements in the mix. We see the aftermath of a massacre which

killed hundreds with a baby at only survivor and the suggestion of a child murderer in their midst.

By the time the film reaches its climax,

you've got a machine gun pointed at our characters

by the man we assumed was the rebel in their midst all along.

...