Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Fatma Suarez The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

TheExpatriate700 Buster takes an extremely interesting subject-the Great Train Robbery of the 1960s-and turns it into a tedious romantic comedy. Although the lead performances by Phil Collins and Julie Walters are good, they are not enough to save the picture.The film's main flaw is that it only deals in passing with the one thing that makes Buster Edwards really interesting-the Great Train Robbery. The robbery itself is dealt with roughly a half hour into the picture. We get no sense of how a small time crook like Buster-a man whose main accomplishment seems to be stealing mannequins from shop windows-got involved with such a major criminal enterprise. Furthermore, we only get the vaguest sense of who the planners of the crime were. At times, I found myself wishing the film had been about the ringleaders instead.Instead, we get over an hour about Buster and his family's time on the run. It isn't particularly interesting, and even comes across as repetitive as Buster moves from one hide out to another. Although the strain on his family makes for some touching moments, it's not enough to carry the movie.The film's "happy" ending especially falls flat, given the real life Buster Edwards's suicide a few years after the film came out. Seeing Buster walk away with his wife, seemingly happy, when the real man was actually an alcoholic haunted by personal demons, is almost heart breaking.The film's one reason to be remembered is for its soundtrack, which features two classic Phil Collins hits. Unfortunately, they only appear at the end of the film.

screenman The idea of chart-topping 'Genesis' front-man Phil Collins playing the role of notorious east-end Great Train Robber 'Buster' Edwards was enough to put me off this movie for life. I didn't see it until many years after its release, and only then by accident on television.I have to say that I owe Mr Collins an apology. If he'd not had so much previous form in the pop-charts I'd have hardly recognised him.The so-called Great Train Robbery was the most audacious and successful crime-caper carried out by the biggest team of amateurs in British Criminal history. It naturally suited the authorities of the day to hype them up as a cunning, ruthless brigade of experts, because it helped draw a veil over their own lax security, and profound political embarrassment that the heist engendered. Compared to the vicious, homicidal scumbags of today, these guys were little more than a bunch of chancers. Notorious Big-Man Ronnie Biggs was only involved by invitation as an afterthought. He was a tradesman, but this job offered more.It's a low-key representation of the crime which, I suspect, more aptly represents the bumbling, uneducated behaviour of those involved, who simply got very lucky, and then became extremely notorious. Collins excels as the working-class wideboy, getting in far too deep and never stopping to consider the broader implications of stopping one of Her Majesty's Mail trains, and stealing millions of pounds.His confusion and inability to contend with the juggernaut that follows is entirely believable. Likewise Julie Walters as his long-suffering but doting moll of a wife, torn between what the proceeds could offer and her hankering for an ordinary, stable family life.The culture clash in Mexico is perfectly realised. Untravelled and untutored English homebodies who have never done anything more exotic than pick winkles on Southend Pier, suddenly find themselves in a hot, tropical paradise that actually proves to be anything but. They can't have the food and drink they grew up with. Everything is 'foreign'. They don't\understand the language, the currency; they're confused by everything and everyone. Like true Brits abroad; they don't adapt well. His wife is first to crack, transported away from all of her family and friends, the familiar if drab neighbourhoods that now seem like heaven. The culture-clash is finally shattered open when one of their children sickens and they have no idea what to do or say. They can make no sense of the hospital. Their anxiety and confusion is an object-lesson. For 'er-indoors'; it's the last straw.Eventually, stricken with home-sickness and with finances depleted; Edwards goes back to face the music. The establishment will show no mercy. It's a blatant miscarriage of justice. But it was not the first, nor would it be the last.We finally see him at his flower stall, much older and little wiser. Edwards was a hapless nobody, a small-time criminal prospector who hit paydirt. The Robbery was the second biggest thing he experienced because it changed his life. His wretched suicide much later was the biggest, because that ended it.It's a movie that I found thoroughly entertaining against all expectations, and won over a deeply-held prejudice about popstars taking to an acting career, and using their singing status to leapfrog undiscovered strugglers.

Lee Bengough I think Buster is a great film. Phil Collins and Julie Walters are great. I only seen the film for the first time this week and I really enjoyed it and I will never get board of it. I thought it was great when he was running about with that dummy so he could have the suite for a funeral which he turned up late for and then he stole the flowers. I think they picked the right man to play Buster Edwards and the right women to pay June Edwards. After all that hassle he had and then got sent down for 15 years he was still on about that dream which he left sunny Mexico for foggy cold and dirty old London and for his family and that made it a happy ending. He broke the law but he was a nice robber.

Coxer99 Singer Collins stars in this simple film about a thief who successfully pulls off the biggest train robbery in history, who then decides to start a new life in Acapulco with his wife June (Walters). Well matched stars in lovely paced yarn with Oscar nominated tunes from Collins ("Two Hearts").