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Boxcar Bertha Movie Review

Boxcar Bertha is a 1972 crime drama film directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Barbara Hershey and David Carradine. It’s a messy early Scorsese movie.

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“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain“

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It is about the adventures of the Depression-era criminal following the death of her father. Bertha joins a union organizer in fighting anti-union forces after an unexpected murder drives them to a life of robbing trains. This movie was the second feature film from Scorsese and the inferior one to his debut.

It follows a romantic couple who are on the run and robbing trains. Does it sound familiar? If so, that’s because it is pretty much a carbon copy of ‘Bonnie and Clyde’. It’s so much weaker to that much better and much more famous movie that it felt as a slight, unnecessary retread.

David Carradine is pretty good here and well cast while the standout is obviously Barbara Hershey, who is so good in this movie. I know her the most from ‘Once Upon a Time’ and it was wonderful seeing her so early in her career. She was fantastic and she elevated what otherwise would have been quite a bad movie to at least a mediocre one.

The violence in Boxcar Bertha is pointless and annoyingly graphic. However, I wouldn’t call it exploitative as judging by the standards of this particular horrible period in movie history, it’s not among the worst examples of that. But it was still needless and frustrating.

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Technically, the movie is fine. It has some solid imagery and fine cinematography while the score and sound are also serviceable. The editing is okay and the dialogue is solid as well. But the characterization left a lot to be desired and the overall plot was very bland and forgettable. The movie is a fleeting viewing experience at an hour and a half, but it is a meaningless affair at the end of the day.